Shazam! Director On Getting The Character Right For the DCEU

SDCC had Warner Bros officially announcing the Shazam! movie, and horror helmer David Sanberg will be taking the helm for the project. Since Sandberg is better known for his work on horror films like Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, he'll have to change a few things with his style when it comes to making a movie about a young kid who's superpower basically turns him into Superman.

Talking to MovieFone, Sandberg says:

"This will be very different than what I've done in the feature space, because it's not a horror movie and it's a much lighter tone… But it's something that I look forward to trying out, even though I plan to return to horror in some fashion. My background, back in Sweden, before I started doing horror shorts, I was doing animated comedy shorts. It's not totally alien to me to have more of a comedy approach. I look forward to taking that on in a feature."

A horror director working on a superhero movie isn't new at all; Scott Derrickson who directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister did great work with Doctor Strange, and Jon Watts had made horror-thriller Clown three years before he worked on Spider-Man: Homecoming.

I'm pretty sure Sandberg will do alright with Shazam!, and it looks like he's hard at work getting back to the character's original roots.

It wasn't a character I grew up with. It was published in Sweden, where I'm from, in the '70s, so it's a little before my time. So I only knew him from the Justice League… It's not until now that I'm getting into the comics and reading a lot of the old ones, the Geoff Johns ones, The Power of Shazam, and looking at a bunch of animation. So I'm really getting to know the character."

Captain Marvel is actually a pretty iconic character in the comics, and the fact that he can go toe-to-toe with Superman is very interesting. Now there's a clash I want to see onscreen. Just check out the JLU version:

For now, Shazam! is aiming to start production early 2018, and the movie is expected to release sometime mid-2019.

See Also: Shazam!: The Rock Will Not Appear As Black Adam