David F. Sandberg On How He Made The Magic Of ‘Shazam!’ Believable

Shazam! director David F. Sandberg revealed how he made the film’s magic feel grounded and believable.

Aquaman hit theaters in December and took the worldwide box office by storm. The DC Extended Universe solo adventure is filled to the brim with fantastic characters, costumes, and locations. In April, the DCEU’s next installment arrives in the form of Shazam!, which will introduce a very different kind of magic to the DCEU.

In April 2018, we at Heroic Hollywood visited the set of Shazam! and received some very interesting information regarding the film’s creative process. During the visit, Director David F. Sandberg broke down how he approached the film’s magic to make it feel believable for the audience.

“It’s like, how do we explain that? Well, it’s magic. You just have to sort of take the magic sort of seriously and have it like a very real world thing, yet not have it feel too foreign or weird.”

Shazam! hits theaters soon and will be the first superhero film directed by David F. Sandberg. The director’s previous two films were horror films such as Annabelle: Creation and Lights Out. As the trailer for Shazam! has revealed, Sandberg will be delivering a very different film than what fans of his are used to seeing.

We’ll be sure to keep you updated on all news regarding Shazam! as soon as more information becomes available. What’s your opinion on the footage from Shazam! so far? Which upcoming DCEU film are you most looking forward to? Let us know your thoughts 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 Djimon Honsou.

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.