You may or may not know this, but Adam Brody, famous for starring on the FOX teen drama ‘The OC’ was cast to play Barry Allen/The Flash in George Miller’s planned big screen movie ‘Justice League: Mortal’, but a Hollywood writers strike resulted in that film being scrapped right on the eve of production. That was over 10 years ago, around 2007. But Brody got his second chance to play a DC superhero, appearing as the adult magically-charged version of Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) in ‘Shazam!’, and rest assured, he’s not giving that role up anytime soon.
While promoting his new low-budget horror movie, ‘Ready or Not’, Brody spoke to The Hollywood Reporter who asked him about his approach to ‘Shazam!’ and the multi-film format of franchises today.
“No one’s in the business anymore of making $100 million movies that aren’t made to be worlds. Even trilogies aren’t enough; they’re not even the model anymore. I’m not even saying this as a bad thing. Real success is a trilogy plus spinoffs. Real success is creating full worlds. Anything with that budget is made to make more of in success, which is exciting. That’s the thrill. In a way, it’s like doing a huge pilot.”
‘Shazam!’ was always going to get at least one spin-off– ‘Black Adam’, the long in the works solo movie featuring Dwayne Johnson. In April, Michelle Borth, who played the adult “Super Mary” version of Grace Fulton‘s Mary Bromfeld, revealed that she had signed on to appear in a whopping FIVE films. ‘Shazam!’ made $364 million at the global box office. That pales in comparison to ‘Aquaman’ which made over a billion dollars, but it was still a success, and plans are already underway for a sequel, with David F. Sandberg returning to direct.
‘Shazam!’ is now available on all home video formats. ‘Ready or Not’ is now playing in theaters. Check back for news about ‘Black Adam’ and ‘Shazam! 2’ as it becomes available.
