Shazam! Fury of the Gods deals with Justice League questions in a clever way
At any given moment, if you duck into the mentions of Shazam! Fury of the Gods director David F. Sandberg, there are about eight to 10 people wondering why Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman aren’t showing up to help Shazam in the DC movie.
“Where was Justice League when all this happened???” one inquiring mind will yell after Sandberg shares an innocuous image of a dragon lighting Philadelphia on fire. Luckily, the director has an answer for every question.
They all die at the start of the movie
The Justice League are… not actually dead when Fury of the Gods picks back up with Billy Batson and his Shazamily (and if you have seen a recent spoilery TV spot, you know there’s room for a cameo or two). But by the time the Daughters of Atlas descend from the skies to reclaim their powers from Billy and his orphan brethren, it can feel like it. Sandberg’s sequel is a movie all about Shazam (played in grown-up form by Zachary Levi) figuring out who he is in the grand pantheon of superheroes, and what happens when he doesn’t have a Superman — or in this case, his dorky brother Freddy souped up with Superman-like powers — by his side. And to create a chamber for that kind of emotional incubation, Sandberg and writers Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan found an easy solution that also staves off all fan questions about the Justice League swooping in to save the day: a literal chamber.
“Marvel gets this too,” Sandberg laments to Polygon with a laugh. “Why aren’t the Avengers here? Why isn’t the Justice League here? Well, it can’t have the Justice League, even if that would be cool, but that was something we talked about — and that’s kind of why we have the dome over Philadelphia, a forcefield that keeps people out.”
While the original
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