David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods isn’t coming to theaters until June 2023, but it’s already shaping up to be one of the most exciting DCEU projects on the horizon, thanks largely to the unexpected success of the opening chapter. The first installment flew under the radar as the shared universe’s least expensive and lowest-grossing effort at the time, but critics and audiences are firmly in agreement that it’s one of the very best.
Now that the world-building is largely out of the way, Fury of the Gods is free to dive straight into the fantastical action from the off, and several major additions have been made to the ensemble to further reiterate that the scope and scale is going to be drastically increased the second time out.
Stage and screen legend Helen Mirren is on board as primary antagonist Hespera, daughter of Atlas, with the Academy Award winner already lavishing praise on leading man Zachary Levi. Lucy Liu and fast-rising West Side Story and Disney’s live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs star Rachel Zegler will play Hespera’s siblings, which is quite the formidable trio for the title hero to find himself up against.
In a new interview, star Asher Angel drummed up even more hype for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, outlining how it’s set to deliver everything fans could hope to want from the genre, and then some.
“We’re shooting right now, I’m in Atlanta. We’re shooting the second one. I’ve been here since May, so we’re shooting and everything is going great. It’s crazy, because it’s so long overdue, so to be back feels so good. It’s so great to see Zachary Levi and Jack Dylan Grazer. We also have some new additions to the cast, some new people, so it feels so good to be back as Billy Batson.
It’s gonna be so much fun. I think the sequel is definitely gonna follow up the first one. It’s kind of got everything you want in a superhero movie. It’s got those heartfelt moments, the action, the comedy, and it’s just everything you’ve ever wanted to see on the big screen. I’m excited.”
Shazam! Fury of the Gods may have lost the element of surprise after the original was so highly praised, but that’s only going to embolden Sandberg and his team to make sure they set an even higher bar this time, cementing Billy Batson as one of the DCEU’s major players in the process.