Director David Sandberg has confirmed that the upcoming adaptation of ‘Shazam!‘ will go out of the way to not call the main character Captain Marvel. With Marvel Studios releasing their own ‘Captain Marvel‘ movie next year, it was probably in DC’s best interest to steer away from calling Shazam anything else.
That isn’t to say that the name won’t be referenced in some way:
“Let’s just say we’re going to have a bit of fun with that in the movie. But he’s basically known as Shazam, which makes sense because of the confusion.”
For those who are wondering why a DC comic would even think of using the line “Captain Marvel” then you have to jump back in time a bit. The original take on the character was kicked off in 1940 through Fawcett Comics. While it was still about a young Billy Batson, the hero in the story went by the name Captain Marvel at the time.
In 1967 the world saw Marvel Comics file a trademark on the name and this wasn’t an issue until 1972 when DC decided to license Fawcett’s, Captain Marvel. At that point, they changed the name to of the comic to ‘Shazam’ even though the character was still able to retain the name in the book. Flash forward to the New 52 launch and the company went all in, changing the name of the hero to Shazam as well.
Are you glad that the character won’t be called “Captain Marvel” at all and just ‘Shazam!’? What type of reference to the original name do you think they’ll make? Share your thoughts below!
Directed by David F. Sandberg, ‘Shazam!’ stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Cooper Andrews, Jovan Armand, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Ian Chen, DJ Cotrona, Grace Fulton, Meagan Good, Jack Dylan Grazer, Faithe Herman, Ron Cephas Jones and Marta Milans. The film opens on April 5, 2019.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
