SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen ‘Shazam!’, this article contains SPOILERS which have already been SPOILED by the film’s merchandising, but even so, consider yourself warned.
Warner Brothers seems to have huge plans for the ‘Shazam!’ franchise. The movie is already a smash success, so a sequel or two is to be expected. There are also plans for Dwayne Johnson to star in a spinoff ‘Black Adam’ featuring an evil version of the main character, who was mentioned– although not named– in the first film. But it seems that WB intends to use the characters in a whopping five pictures!
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This news emerged in Parade, the magazine supplement that comes with the Sunday newspaper in some areas. Parade profiled Michelle Borth, who appeared in ‘Shazam!’ as the adult superhero version of Billy’s new older foster sister Mary Bromfield, played in her regular form by Grace Fulton. She recounted that when she was given the role in the film, she cried “hysterically for 10 minutes.”
As she elaborated on the mysterious casting process:
“It was tears of joy, but it was just so overwhelming. I had never gotten a role from one taped audition, let alone a five-picture deal with Warner Bros. from a one-tape audition. You always have to go through a really long process. There’s a fight to get there, so it was a really incredible moment. That’s all I can say. It was one of those really magical moments of, ‘Oh, my God. You hear about this sometimes. Every now and then, this happens,’ and that was mine. I did a great dance, an interpretive dance, and had a lot of fun with it, and then forgot, and that was it.”
A “five-picture deal?!” Does that mean two ‘Shazam!’ sequels and two ‘Black Adam’ flicks?
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At any rate, due to the nature of the ‘Shazam!’ films, WB needs to get cranking on any follow-ups. Those kids are growing up fast. If you’ve seen Asher Angel, who plays Billy Batson, or Jack Dylan Grazer, who plays Freddy Freeman, while they were promoting the release of ‘Shazam!’, you can already see and hear a noticeable change in them from the way they appear in the movie. Angel is almost as tall as his adult counterpart, Zachary Levi, and his voice is deeper.
Grace Fulton is already 22, although she was playing a 17-18-year-old. She’s practically old enough to play her own adult counterpart.
But the charm of having kids become superhuman adults will be considerably lessened when it’s young adults turning into slightly older adults. They could recast, but would it be the same?
At any rate, ‘Shazam!’ is now playing in theaters everywhere.