After a number of changes in the release calendar last week, including No Time To Die and Fast & Furious 9 nabbing slots in spring 2021, Warner Bros has decided to shift much of its upcoming DCEU slate. This includes the developing Shazam! sequel moving to summer 2023 from late 2022, and the news immediately left fans worried about the predominantly young cast going through growth spurts.
The Shazam! director David F. Sandberg responded to fans’ concerns with a reassuring update and a bit of fun. In his words on Twitter:
And Shazam! Fury of the Gods is now a summer 2023 film... WB was like “can’t you just use fake beards on the kids?” and I was like ‘If Tom Cruise is going to space for real then we can wait for the kids to grow real beards! It’s an important plot point.’ Seriously though, it doesn’t mean we have to change the shooting schedule so no need to freak out about the age of the kids. You can freak out about your own age though. I’ll be 42 in three years. How about that!
The second Shazam! was on track to begin filming at the top of 2021 and according to Sandberg their production schedule is not being affected by the release date shifts. Many film sets are currently back at work and Shazam! Fury of the Gods will reportedly start up as scheduled, even if that’s quite ahead of schedule for the DC release.
For movies in the DC universe, it's important for the studio to space out releases so they don’t compete with one another or give us, the audience, fatigue (especially because the titles will be arriving amidst an even bigger wave of Marvel releases coming our way in the near future. The franchise could even benefit from the second Shazam! film not to be constrained by tight deadlines if all goes as planned. Even so, Sandberg is having fun with fans’ concerns over the cast growing up:
We’ll have to wait and see how Shazam! Fury of the Gods decides to face the years lost as its young cast including Jack Dylan Grazer, Asher Angel and Faithe Herman continue to get older. Of course the main problem the movie could face is some of the kids looking too old to match with the superhero versions of themselves that the third act of the previous movie introduced. Will we need Adam Brody to take over as Freddy if Jack Dylan Grazer already looks like an adult? With filming still set for within the year, all should be well. Sandberg is still leaning into the perhaps overblown worries with this:
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is currently set to hit theaters on June 2, 2023. Ezra Miller’s first solo outing in The Flash, featuring Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck’s as their Batmen, is now coming out on Shazam’s previous date on November 4, 2022. The Batman has been moved from October 2021 to March of 2022 and Black Adam, which recently cast its Hawkman has lost its December 2021 release date and is no longer on the schedule.
Check out CinemaBlend’s updated DCEU calendar for the complete list of superhero movies coming out from Warner Bros.
