Editorial Staff
Casting on Warner’s “Shazam” began last week, with a wide casting call alerting agents of young actors large and small (yep, seems Warner are taking a cue from the new “Star Wars” flicks here and are opening themselves up the possibility that their lead might be an unknown) that the Billy Batson role is a hole that needs to be clogged. The Henry Gayden script, which has a beautifully balanced tone of superhero adventure antics and welcome humor, much in the same way both “Ant-Man” and “Spider-Man : Homecoming” did, will be an amazing showcase for a tween thesp. The cheeky dialogue, the likeable nature and Batson’s crucial emotional arc will likely make that chosen actor’s career. David F.Sanberg will likely be spoilt for choice here.
While Black Adam won’t be appearing in the film (rumour is they’re having Dwayne Johnson debut the character in the next “Man of Steel” film), the Shazam family and more faves from the ink world will. In addition to Victor and Rosa, and staple buds Eugene, Freddy and Pedro, you’ll also see quite a bit of The Wizard.
** Slight spoiler here ** Billy’s mother features in an interesting sequence, reminiscent of some of the stuff in the last season of “The Flash”, that’ll pull at the heartstrings.
Speaking of “The Flash”, it would seem the time-altering antics in his debut flick “Flashpoint” will have an effect on this one – and other DC films – but remains to be seen just how much. Fun idea to have the new crop of DC films find themselves slightly modified by the speedster’s actions.
Anyway, long story short, screen testing for Batson has begun, as have the other roles, so we should hear some casting announcements by late September.
