You may recall that a while back we reported Kick-ass, Kingsman and Green Lantern star Mark Strong was tipped to play Doctor Sivana, the villain in the upcoming Shazam! movie (here).
Since then we’ve heard nothing more on the issue.
Until now.
Speaking at the premiere of Cirque du Soleil ‘OVO’ at The Royal Albert Hall in London, Strong started talking about the Shazam! script and just how secretive it all was: “If you stop reading the script for 20 seconds then the whole thing goes fuzzy and you have to start again. Everything is watermarked and traceable too.”
This is all very interesting but we’d never heard anything official about Strong being in the movie.
“I’m playing an evil b#@tard called Doctor Sivana,” said Strong. Em, you are?!
The actor went on: “They are always the best characters to play, the most fun. I was Sinestro in Green Lantern which I though was a rather good film but it didn’t do what they wanted so I feel like I’ve got unfinished business in the DC world, I played a pretty evil character in that and he was meant to get even worse in the second one but that never happened but I think I’m going to get the chance to do that in ‘Shazam!’, I hope so.”
Going by this statement it seems that, while not one hundred per cent confirmed, Strong is all but signed on to become part of the DC Cinematic Universe fighting Zachary Levi’s superhero Shazam! ( an acronym of the ancient world gods and historical figures: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury).
And that makes us very excited as we’ve always been big fans of Strong.
And it seems he likes the script and is prepared to go the extra mile to to fit in with all the super physiques in the DC movies: “It’s a funny film, it’s about a young boy who can become a superhero but still remains a young boy so there’s elements of ‘Big’ there’s elements of ‘Stranger Things’. I think originally the comic outsold ‘Superman’ in the 1940s.
“I’ve been training like a mad man, I’m about to go over and see the stunt guys, I’ve been trying all of these harnesses on and I think I’m going to be doing lots of flying around and firing electricity out of my hands.”
The ‘Big’ comparison is one that’s been made by star Levi too: “I am just out of my mind excited! I get to do my version of Big, basically. It’s like Superman meets Big, and that’s just so fun.
“I get to be a superhero that’s excited about being a superhero, and I think that’s refreshing. It’s not glum, and like, ‘Oh, I have to save the world again.’ So I think it’s all really gravy.”
We’ve reported on the possibility of Henry Cavill’s appearance in the Shazam! movie as Superman (here), but it seem Levi himself would rather have someone else cameo: “Wonder Woman, because she’s awesome,” he said.
“I think getting a cameo from anybody would be super cool, but I just think Gal Gadot is so effervescent. She has such a charm. And she seems like a really cool broad. Like, she was in the Israeli army. She’s a mom. And I’m like, ‘You seem like you’re grounded and cool, and you’re Wonder Woman, and you rock,’” Levi exclaimed. “And I think it would be really funny to have the 14-year-old Billy Batson inside of Shazam that’s really awkward around this beautiful Amazonian. I just think that would be really awesome.”
Well, we’re happy to see Gadot’s Wonder Woman in any capacity is always welcome by us all at FTN.
On top of all this, Warner Bros have confirmed Shazam!’s release date to be April 5th, 2019.
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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