Shazam is a ridiculously fun and at-times silly film that’ll undeniably appeal to younger moviegoers, while at the same time feeling like a breath of fresh air to adults who’ve grown weary of Warner Bros. and DC’s fondness for grimdark cape stories. But when io9 spoke to director David F. Sandberg and actor Asher Angel (who portrays young Billy Batson), both were adamant about Shazam being more than a “kids’ movie” in the pejorative sense of the phrase.
Shazam is a movie about a teenaged orphan who can magically transform into a grown man with a cavalcade of superpowers—with a costume that’d put Elvis Presley to shame. While you can imagine the movie has its fair share of lighthearted moments, Sandberg explained that at its heart, it’s really a movie about the ways in which young people learn to recognise adults for the fallible, flawed people they actually are:
When you’re a kid, you have to learn that there are times when adults will let you down and fail you. It’s an important part of growing up everybody has to learn, but it’s something that really gives Billy and Sivana their origins as a hero and villain.
When you take away their powers, what Billy and Sivana both want it to belong and be part of a family and we wanted to get into how that desire can bring out the best or the worst in a person.
The difference is that Billy learns to forgive people for their faults and Sivana doesn’t. That’s what holds Sivana back and what makes Billy a hero, but we also wanted people to understand the motivations behind their actions and empathise with what they’re feeling because they’ve both been hurt by people.
In DC’s comics, Doctor Sivana is a social outcast turned mad scientist who builds a spaceship to leave Earth for Venus at the turn of the 20th century, hoping to build a new home far away from the society that shunned his brilliance. When Sivana returns to Earth with villainous plans for revenge, he crosses paths with Shazam, and the two become lifelong mortal enemies.
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