The long awaited second trailer for Shazam! debuted last week, and in it there is a fun moment where Shazam throws a large Batman doll at Mark Strong’s Doctor Sivana. The toy delivers the Dark Knight’s trademark line “I’m Batman!”, and some fans excitedly thought that it was Batman: The Animated Series actor Kevin Conroy whose voice they were hearing. Sorry, but sadly, that is not the case, as director David F. Sandberg explained:
I hate to disappoint but it’s sound designer/supervisor Bill Dean getting to live out his dream of being Batman.
In his response to a fan’s query on Reddit, David F. Sandberg cleared up the issue of who is voicing the Batman doll in the Shazam! trailer, revealing that despite fan speculation, it is not Kevin Conroy, the iconic voice of the Caped Crusader throughout numerous television shows, animated movies and video games. Instead, Shazam! sound designer and supervising sound editor Bill R. Dean got to lend his own dulcet tones to the character.
By the sound of it, Bill Dean has long dreamt of being Batman (who hasn’t?), and this gave him the opportunity to forever have his voice attached to the superhero, albeit a toy version of him. It is also perhaps the highest compliment you could give someone doing a Batman voice to mistake them for Kevin Conroy.
So on top of living out his dream of being Batman in this small way, Bill Dean should be quite proud of himself, knowing that his “I’m Batman!” sounded like the most iconic voice ever attached to the character. It’s also quite cool of David F. Sandberg to let him have some fun and deliver this line.
Admittedly, it would have been awesome to have Kevin Conroy lend his voice to the Batman toy as a fun Easter egg in Shazam!, but this is presumably the only time the Batman voice is used in the film, so it would have been unnecessary.
Although, it’s a pity that Matt Reeves hasn’t cast his Batman yet, because one fun idea would have been to have the new actor playing Batman in his film say the iconic line and let audiences spend the next couple of years trying to figure out who it was.
While Kevin Conroy isn’t voicing the Batman toy in Shazam!, you can still hear his Bruce Wayne in a movie this year. Justice League vs The Fatal Five is the latest DC animated universe film and it reunites Kevin Conroy’s Caped Crusader with some other voices from the beloved Justice League animated series, George Newbern’s Superman and Susan Eisenberg’s Wonder Woman. Justice League vs The Fatal Five releases digitally on March 30 and on home video on April 16.
Shazam! bolts into theaters on April 5 and the early reactions to the film are very positive. Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of all the biggest movies headed to theaters this year.
