After the massive box office success of “Aquaman,” fans, and the folks at Warner Bros., were excited to see what the studio’s newest superhero franchise, “Shazam!” would do in theaters. While the film received pretty glowing reviews and was largely seen as another fun action-adventure film after “Aquaman,” the newest franchise in the DCEU didn’t exactly light up the box office. That being said, it appears that there aren’t just plans for one sequel, but a trilogy, as well as a huge spin-off film.
Well before there was even a “Shazam!” film, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was signed on to make a “Black Adam” film, which would tie directly into the mythos of Shazam. Now, since “Shazam!” was released to widespread fan-approval and decent box office, it would appear that WB is going full steam ahead with its first spin-off, “Black Adam.”
Speaking to CinemaBlend, producer Hiram Garcia talks about that film and the recent news that Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed Johnson in the upcoming “Jungle Cruise,” is signed on to direct the superhero outing.
“Jaume is a real talent,” said the producer. “He is one of my favorite directors I’ve ever worked with. Not only is he talented, he’s an unbelievable collaborator. He’s an amazing visionary. And what we have in store with Black Adam and for the fans, I am so excited inside.”
He continued, “Inside, I take pride as being a fanboy. I started as a fanboy before I became a producer, so I hold onto that DNA. His vision for what we want to do with Black Adam is fantastic. So, that deal’s almost closed. He’s ready to go, and I think the fans are going to be really happy.”
Now, “Black Adam” will no doubt have some “Shazam!” mentions and allusions, but the film isn’t being positioned as a sequel. In fact, WB is said to be working on a true sequel to this year’s film with star Zachary Levi returning putting on the red suit yet again. But don’t expect The Rock to show up in the “Shazam!” sequel. In fact, the two heavyweights won’t actually cross over until “Shazam 3” or “Black Adam 2”…or maybe both?
“I can say that as far as I know, Black Adam is not going to be in the second ‘Shazam!,’ because the idea is that they want to go and do a standalone ‘Black Adam’ movie first,” Levi said (via Comicbook.com). “And then it would kind of be, if we do a third ‘Shazam!’ and a second ‘Black Adam,’ kind of [parallel] like that, that’s where we would [meet].”
“If we [have Black Adam] in the second movie, then where do we go after that?” continued the actor. “It would just be a movie of us sitting around playing video games for the third one, that would be very boring. Or not [laughs]. I’m a very interesting video game player. So yeah, I think that’s the idea. We’ll definitely [cross over] — the plan is to get there, but just to pace it out however it needs to pace out.”
All told, it appears that there are two sequels and at least one spin-off actively planned for ‘Shazam!” That’s mighty bold decision-making for a studio based on the box office performance of this year’s film. Earning only $140 million domestically, “Shazam!” actually ranks behind every Marvel Studios film except “The Incredible Hulk” ($135 million). It also ranks behind “X-Men: Apocalypse,” the 2005 “Fantastic Four,” and “X-Men: First Class.” Not exactly a dominant showing.
Worldwide, the results aren’t much better. “Shazam!” finished with a global gross of only $364 million, which is almost half of what “Justice League” pulled in (and that film suffered a troubled production and absolutely dreadful reviews). It also finishes behind every Marvel Cinematic Universe film except “Incredible Hulk.” Yes, even the first “Captain America” and “Thor” films, which were released during the infancy of the MCU did better than “Shazam!”
Ultimately, WB has high hopes for the future and is banking on the word-of-mouth carrying the franchise forward. We’ll see what comes of that because most studios wouldn’t consider “Shazam!” to be a franchise worth spinning off and creating a trilogy around.