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Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Zachary Levi

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Zachary Levi candidly addressed the poor reviews and box office reception his film Shazam! Fury of the Gods received when it premiered in March.

Speaking on The FilmUp Podcast on Tuesday (July 25), Levi admitted that the future of the franchise is now up in the air.

“I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received,” he said. “The audience score is still quite good, but the critics’ score was very oddly and perplexingly low, and people were insanely unkind.”

The Warner Bros. film grossed $57 million domestically and $133 million worldwide, just barely breaking even with its budget.

“I’ve been a part of things, and as much as I wish they were good, I know they’re okay,” he said. “I know that they miss a lot. And I’m not saying Shazam! Fury of the Gods is some perfect, Orson Welles-like masterpiece, but it’s a good darn movie.”

In Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Billy Batson and his teenaged foster siblings are still getting used to their adult superhero alter egos when their city gets terrorized by a group of ancient gods in search of the power that had been stolen from them.

Despite featuring some decent performances from Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, and Rachel Zegler, it was critically panned.

“I think even just the world, from the first movie to the second movie, the world has shifted so much,” Levi explained.

He appeared to place some of the blame on how much social media has changed since Shazam! premiered in 2019. “Social media has shifted so much. Hate, online hate and haters and trolls, and factions and all that has just gotten more galvanized in its toxicity,” he said. “I think there are people who genuinely, unfortunately, want to destroy certain projects because they don’t like them, or they don’t like me.”

This could be the last we see of the teenaged superhero. Levi seemed unsure of where the franchise could go from here, considering it hasn’t been mentioned in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s plans for the DC Universe.

“I have no idea where we go from here,” the actor said.

Shazam! and Shazam! Fury of the Gods are both streaming on Max.