Zachary Levi’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods hasn’t opened to great numbers and was only able to garner a domestic total of $30.5m on its opening weekend, which is the lowest post-pandemic opening for a DC film. Considering that there hasn’t been any confirmation regarding Levi’s inclusion in the DCU, and following the movie’s poor reception, things are not looking good for the future.
Although there might be several reasons behind its poor performance, according to the actor, it mostly has to do with the toxic part of the DC fandom, which has grown bigger over the last few years.
Zachary Levi blames Snyderverse fandom for Shazam! 2 failure
While reflecting on the failure of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Zachary Levi shared his viewpoint on the low critical reception of the sequel. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast with Josh Horowitz, the actor blamed one particular group of fans for the failure of the sequel, presumably the Snyderverse fandom. He said,
“There’s a whole contingent of comic book fans that it’s really unfortunate that there’s this one particular group of people that think I… well, they don’t like me, because I don’t agree with them on other comic book movies. You know who I’m talking about.”
However, Levi isn’t the only one who had to come across the toxicity. After James Gunn and Peter Safran decided to pull the plug on the struggling DCEU, there has been an outcry from a particular portion of the fandom. They have been pretty outspoken about their distaste for any projects that aren’t in line with Zack Snyder’s vision and haven’t stopped to bring those down.
David F. Sandberg was surprised by Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ low critical reception
Director David F. Sandberg has expressed his desire to move away from the world of superheroes and go back to his roots in the horror genre. But the low critical reception of the Shazam sequel came as a surprise to the director. He explained that even though he wasn’t expecting scores like the last one, it was still surprising to see the low critic score. He said,
“On Rotten Tomatoes I just got my lowest critic score and my highest audience score on the same film I wasn’t expecting a repeat of the first movie critically but I was still a little surprised because I think it’s a good film. Oh well.”
Considering that John Wick: Chapter 4 is set to debut next week, things aren’t appearing to be improving for the sequel at the box office. Even though Levi has expressed his admiration for James Gunn’s vision for the universe, his future in the role of Billy Batson remains uncertain.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is currently playing in theatres.
Source: The Happy Sad Confused Podcast
