Maybe Shazam and Black Adam might be fighting after all. Except not on screen in a grand action spectacle but on social media (where people normally fight nowadays). DC’s classic property has been dealt a one-two punch as both Black Adam and recently, Shazam: Fury of the Gods have been given much grief from critics as well as performing below expectations at the box office. Back with the first Shazam‘s success, and knowing that Dwayne Johnson should inevitably crossover, it looked like a good set-up for a big “versus” movie. However, neither film has really acknowledged each other. And Zachary Levi has supported a claim that it’s Johnson’s doing.
Last night, Levi shared a screenshot on an Instagram story of a report that Dwayne Johnson both refused to let Shazam make a post-credits cameo in Black Adam and blocked the Justice Society of America’s cameo appearance in Shazam: Fury of the Gods. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the director David F. Sandberg had said “that the scene ‘fell apart three days before we were going to roll cameras,’ forcing him to find alternate characters last-minute.” Levi’s screenshot of the report was accompanied by the caption, “The truth shall set you free.”
Black Adam is known as the anti-Shazam in the comics and is one of, if not the biggest adversary to the character. Johnson reportedly refused a Shazam appearance in Black Adam in favor of having Henry Cavill’s Superman show up instead. Then, Johnson started his narrative of fighting to bring Cavill back to DC with an eventual showdown between those characters. I guess, technically, Johnson was correct when he boasted that the hierarchy of power at DC was about to shift since all his plans were nixed once James Gunn and Peter Safran started running the company and reboot with their own continuity.
Before the premiere of Black Adam, it was also reported that Johnson turned down the opportunity for Black Adam to be introduced in the first Shazam film, saying he wanted to give both characters their own movie to have their time to develop. Of course, this was before the film revealed a Superman re-introduction, which had been Johnson’s goal. Levi has not elaborated on his posting, and while this recent film underperformed, Levi attributes it to poor marketing, “I think the biggest issue we’re having is marketing. This is a perfect family movie, and yet a lot of families aren’t aware of that. Which is just a shame.”