One of my favorite lessor known (relatively speaking) super heroes has always been Captain Marvel (also known as Shazam). There was a time that The Rock was on board to play either the lead or the villain in the project (oddly enough I actually think that would work), but common thinking recently seems to be that the project was dead. Well… according to director Peter Segal (50 First Dates, Get Smart) it is still very much alive.
The folks over at Sci Fi Wire give us this:
“I think it’ll still happen,” Segal (Get Smart) said in a group interview at WonderCon in San Francisco over the weekend. “Though timing is going to be a key issue now, because … normally we’d be working on a script while we’re in post-production [on Get Smart], so that hopefully when we’re done with post-production, we’re ready to go into preproduction [on the next project]. You don’t really want to rush something like Shazam,” Segal said. “I mean, it’s going to be a huge movie. I mean, huge in scope and in price. And so you want to make sure you have a solid script and really pay attention to the casting and all the preproduction that goes into that. So, you know, I think when it’s right, it’ll be made.”
The character will most likely go by the name “Shazam” since he is a DC Comics character and they won’t want to confuse him with Marvel Comics.
As much as I like this character, I just don’t see it working in an age of superman movies. A guy with super strength, red outfit, a cape and can fly. Sound familiar? I also don’t think a director like Segal is the right guy for something like this. I appreciate him as a comedy director… but is Shazam going to be relegated to being some sort of half assed spoof comedy? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
