Shazam! screenwriter Henry Gayden revealed how former DC Films president Walter Hamada got into the film’s most devastating moment.
the writer of Shazam! has revealed how the superhero movie’s most important and heartbreaking scene came from a note from a DC executive. Shazam!, which hit theaters in April 2019, follows a rebellious 13-year-old foster child named Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who is given the power by the wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) to transform into a powerful adult superhero (Zachary Levi). . The general arc of the film centers on Billy learning to stop selfishly pursuing his own desires and work together as part of a team and a family to prevent the Seven Deadly Sins from being unleashed on the world by the villain Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
Although a sequel is on the way in 2023 Shazam! Anger of the Gods, the future of the DCEU is currently on shaky ground. As the year began with the explosive success of the The Suicide Squad spin-off series peacekeeperThe future of the franchise has turned murky, with both the Shazam! and Aquarius sequels with frequent delays and the recent merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, creating a new regime that refocuses the company’s mission, including removing the upcoming HBO Max movie batgirl completely off the grid. This week, the franchise was dealt another blow when it was announced that DC Films president Walter Hamada will be leaving the company.
On his official Twitter account, Shazam! screenwriter Henry Gayden shared a thread celebrating Hamada’s creative contributions to the DCEU. He revealed that one of the film’s most devastating scenes—when Billy finds his birth mother and discovers she’s voluntarily given him up for foster care and doesn’t want him to come back into her life—was actually a suggestion from Hamada, who thought that the original scene with Billy visiting his parents’ graves was too bad. While he understands the irony of this situation, Gayden told Hamada that “he creatively took too big a swing‘, but he was encouraged to sit down and write the scene, and once he did, he said that’aone hour later it was my favorite scene in the movie.”
How Shazam! influenced Billy Batson’s Arc
This studio note eventually became key in Billy Batson’s Shazam! character bow. The film was already about him embracing a found family in the form of the children around him in his shelter, but this scene makes them become much more meaningful in the end. His search for his birth mother has been the driving force of his entire life thus far, so the fact that she is still alive is an instrumental illustration of the fact that he is actively making the choice to join his foster family rather than through to go searching. a place in the family in which he was born.
Given his contributions, Hamada’s departure will have an untold impact on the future of the DCEU. However, Shazam! At least fans can rest assured that the sequel was made under his regime. Hopefully, the film will be able to strike the same balance between light-hearted humor and serious meaning that made the original such a success.
Source: Henry Gayden/Twitter
