Shazam! 2 blame game heats up as star tags The Rock, Zack Snyder fans
Recriminations have begun over Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ unheroic performance at the box office. And like all things to do with the DC Universe during this awkward transition period to a new era under DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran, it’s getting pretty messy.
The Shazam sequel’s star Zachary Levi has fanned the flames on social media, endorsing a story that the series was undermined by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s power play to put his character Black Adam at the core of the DC Universe, and agreeing that embittered fans of the Zack Snyder DC films wanted his movie to fail.
On Tuesday, Levi posted an Instagram story (captured for posterity by Home of DCU on Twitter, and verified by Polygon) quoting a report by The Wrap that Johnson had vetoed linking Black Adam to Shazam! in post-credits scenes, despite the characters’ canonical link in the comics. “The truth shall set you free,” Levi commented, with an upside-down smiley face.
Zachary Levi posted this on his Instagram story. ☕️ pic.twitter.com/5N3hx6a93r
According to The Wrap’s two “high-level” sources, The Rock personally vetoed a post-credits scene for Black Adam that would have shown Levi’s Shazam being recruited to join that film’s Justice Society hero team, in favor of the now-infamous cameo by Henry Cavill’s Superman. Johnson was betting on fan appetite fueling Cavill’s return in a sequel to Man of Steel — which it almost did, until it very much didn’t — and perhaps figured that Superman would make a more prestigious opponent for his antihero than the goofy Shazam.
Further, The Wrap reports that when Safran and director David F. Sandberg tried to recreate the same post-credits scene for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Johnson ruled out the use of any of
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