A cameo from a certain member of the Justice League in Shazam! Wrath of the Gods was planned from the very beginning, although the director wasn’t sure if it would happen.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director David F. Sandberg was asked when the film’s surprise Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) appearance was written into history. “Right from the start and from the first script,” Sandberg said. “She was always going to be in it, but I didn’t think it was going to happen because of what happened in the first movie where we were going to do a headless Superman cameo. I thought it was going to happen here as well .” Sandberg’s “headless Superman” remark refers to the end of the first Shazam! in 2019, where Superman is briefly shown from the neck down. This was due to actor Henry Cavill being unavailable for filming at the time.
Shazam! Get creative with the DC Universe
Sandberg went on to say that if Gadot wasn’t available, he could have brought back Hespera (Helen Mirren) to restore the wizard’s staff after it was destroyed during the film’s climax. “So I started thinking, ‘Okay, when she can’t do it, or when it falls apart, how do we bring Shazam back to life? Are we going to bring Helen Mirren’s character, Hespera, back? What are we going to do?’ But then it actually happened, which was great because then we could make fun of the headless cameo in the first movie, with the wizard’s dream sequence and stuff, but we never could have done that if we didn’t actually have Gal at the end because people would have been furious.”
Wonder Woman wasn’t the only DC cameo originally planned for the film. While Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) himself never shows up to fight his archenemy, the Justice Society from Black Adam almost appeared during the film’s post-credits scene. According to previous comments from Sandberg, the Justice Society was supposed to personally speak with Shazam (Zachary Levi) at the end, but Sandberg learned that the actors could not perform just three days before the scene would be filmed. Some last-minute phone calls were made to producers, and Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker was written into the scene instead.
Shazam! Wrath of the Gods continues the adventures of teenager Billy Batson and his foster siblings, all of whom received powers from mythological gods thanks to the old wizard (Djimon Honsou) in the first film. The sequel pits Shazam against the Daughters of Atlas, who hope to steal the wizard’s power for themselves and avenge their father’s death. When Shazam’s friends lose their powers, he must stop his daughter Kalypso (Lucy Liu) from conquering Earth with an army of monsters.
Shazam! Wrath of the Gods now playing in cinemas.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter