Does Henry Cavill’s Superman Actually Appear In ‘Shazam!’?

Warning: the following article contains major spoilers for Zachary Levi’s Shazam!

With Shazam! starring Zachary Levi finally hitting theaters this weekend, with preview screenings beginning tonight, it’s time to dive into the film’s biggest spoiler: the surprise cameo from Henry Cavill’s Superman.

Shazam! ends with Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy Freeman finally getting his wish to have Zachary Levi’s Shazam show up at school and surprise the student body, revealing himself to be friends with Freddy, which his bullies had teased him for lying about earlier in the film. But Zachary Levi’s Shazam one-ups himself, surprising both the school and Freddy with his personal favorite superhero, none other than Superman himself. But to the disappointment of DC fans, it’s not really Henry Cavill.

Henry Cavill walked away from negotiations to reprise his role as Superman last year after he and Warner Bros. failed to reach an agreement that would have seen the actor return for a surprise cameo, delivering only two lines in the film. The rumor that his version of Superman would appear but that we wouldn’t actually get to see Henry Cavill’s face turned out to be true. Warners managed to get away with this by simply keeping Superman’s head out of the frame of the two shots he was in.

While Henry Cavill may have walked away from negotiations to return as Superman, which was reportedly due to scheduling conflicts as the actor is currently filming Netflix’s The Witcher series for which he stars as the lead, there still may be hope for his return in the future, with his agent Dany Garcia having assured fans that he has not hung up the cape and officially retired from the role yet.

So what do you think? Did you enjoy seeing Superman appear in the film? Are you disappointed it wasn’t Henry Cavill alongside Zachary Levi? Let us know in the comments below!

Directed by David F. Sandberg, Shazam! stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans, and Ron Cephas Jones. Here is the plot synopsis for Shazam!:

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong).

Shazam! will be released in theaters on April 5, 2019, and will be followed by Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, and Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020. A standalone Joker film set outside of the DC Films universe starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Clown Prince of Crime is also set to hit theaters October 4, 2019.

Stay tuned to Heroic Hollywood for the latest news on the future of the DC Films franchise as we learn it.