Zachary Levi on why Shazam! is the hero the world needs right now

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Each and every day, there are a multitude of dark deeds and terrible events taking place throughout the world, and it's unfortunately a little too easy to let those events cast a shadow over your life. Even so, there are plenty of wonderful things in the world, such as entertainment, which can do quite a lot to lift our spirits. Zachary Levi recently spoke with CBR and explained why he believes that now is the perfect time for SHAZAM! to make his big-screen debut.

Honestly, I think the purity of it. While we all like seeing movies that challenge us with their kind of the darker underbelly of life and we need to shine lights on those things and tell those stories, there’s a lot of heaviness in the world and I think that it’s really beautiful when you can go and cheer for that’s just got a good heart that really does mean well and they’re trying to find their way in the world.

"We need heroes," Levi continued. "That’s why I think we flock to superhero movies. We wanna see ourselves in them, we do see ourselves in them, but we also feel kind of inspired and more hopeful that there is good in the world that is vanquishing the evil in the world that is standing up for the everyman and going and trying to make a difference. But again also, it’s the wish fulfillment. Other characters, other superheroes… it’s difficult to see yourselves in those shoes. But Billy Batson is every kid." It's a fantastic gift to be able to lose yourself for a couple of hours, and if SHAZAM! really can deliver an experience which brings back all those childhood memories of wanting to be a superhero, then I've no doubt it will succeed.

The official 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! is slated for an April 5, 2019 release.