The film roster for the DCEU may be uncertain right now, but we know for sure that Shazam! is definitely coming theaters. The film has been in active development for a while now, building up a cast that includes Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, and Mark Strong. The most recent casting news from the movie is that Ron Cephas is in talks to play The Wizard, the mystical being who bestows Billy Baston with the powers of Shazam. One artist has already envisioned what Cephas would look like in costume. Check out the impressive art below.
Traditionally, young Billy Batson are gifted to him by The Wizard, who gives Billy the powers of six of the Olympian gods. This allows him to transform into the hero Shazam. The Wizard thus plays a pretty integral role in the mythology of Shazam (he also gave Black Adam his powers), and it was reported that Ron Cephas Jones was in talks to take on the role in the feature film. The Wizard is usually portrayed as looking like a Gandalf-type figure, but recent interpretations of the character have changed up his appearance to that of more an eternal being.
That's the look that artist Datrini Art was used when imagining Ron Cephas would look like as The Wizard. In what he calls a "quick" drawing, he posted the art of Cephas as The Wizard to his Instagram page. It's a very cool looking drawing, and is pretty spot on. Cephas Jones looks so much at home that I originally thought this was just The Wizard as based on the comic book. Two thumbs up for you, Datriniti!
Should Ron Cephas Jones end up cast as The Wizard, he'll be joining the likes of Zachary Levi and Asher Angel, who have been tapped to play Shazam and Billy Batson, respectively. Mark Strong joins them officially as the villain, Dr. Sivana. Jack Dylan Grazer and Grace Fulton take on the roles of Freddy Freeman and Mary Bromfield, two friends of Billy's. Jovan Armand, Ian Chen, Faithe Herman, and Cooper Andrews fill out the rest of the cast, though, several more announcements are likely on the way.
Shazam! is directed by David F. Sandberg with a screenplay written by Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke. Not much about the plot of the film is known, but Zachary Levi compared it to a superpowered version of Big. We're looking at a much lighter in tone DCEU film with this one and it'll be interesting to see how the creative team handles all the ridiculous elements inherent with Shazam.
Shazam! is set to debut in theaters on April 5, 2019. To learn more about the movie, here's everything we know so far about DC Films' latest project.
