Shazam’s Zachary Levi is excited to throw down with The Rock’s Black Adam

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

I don't know too many people who would be excited about trading blows with Dwayne Johnson. After all, the man is built like a brick shithouse, and could likely knock you into next week with just one flick of his meaty finger. That being said, Zachary Levi has recently expressed his enthusiasm to go toe-to-toe with The Rock's Black Adam when the villainous Shazam doppelgänger arrives in an eventual sequel to director David F. Sandberg's original film.

“The fact that I now get to — even though I’m not his twin, necessarily — but I get to be the Captain Marvel to his Black Adam, he gets to be the Black Adam to my Captain Marvel, that I get to fight Dwayne the Rock Johnson in an action movie? Are you crazy?” an energetic Levi said at FAN EXPO Boston (via Comicbook.com). “I get to punch the Rock in the face, people! I get to do that! Who gets to punch the Rock in the face? It’ll probably be in his contract, ‘Not allowed to punch me.’”

In talking about Johnson playing the larger-than-life supervillain, Levi remarked that the man who loves to smell his own cooking has "muscles on top of muscles" and in many ways looks "like what comics looked like in the late ‘90s.” Of course, Levi is referring to the comics days of yore, when creators the likes of Rob Liefeld were introducing readers to characters that had just as many abs as they did pouches on their outrageous costumes.

“I was aware, like many of us, that he had been connected to and essentially cast as Black Adam before the auditions and stuff for SHAZAM! came around, because he had been attached years prior,” Levi said in reference to not pursuing the Shazam role after thinking that WB would want to cast someone on par with Johnson's size and stature. “And I knew that, and I knew that Black Adam was essentially the evil doppelgänger of Captain Marvel. Like twinsies, but with different colored outfits and different dispositions.”

“So two months before I got the job for Shazam, I got an audition email from my agency saying, ‘Hey, we got you an audition for the role of Shazam in SHAZAM! I was like, ‘Aren’t they looking for the Rock’s twin? This seems like I’d be wasting everybody’s time,’” Levi continued, explaining his confusion and hesitance. “And they’re like, ‘We don’t really know.’ The response was basically the [shrugging emoji]. I was like, ‘I’m not gonna [audition], I’ll just embarrass myself.’ So I turned the audition down.”

Two months later, Levi cast his trepidation aside and decided to test for a supporting role. “And I put myself on tape for that, and like a week later I was Shazam,” Levi said. “Like the whole thing was super crazy and magical.” Let it be known that you'll never know what you can achieve until you try. Life is full of happy accidents, and sometimes destiny has a very sneaky way of presenting you with unique opportunities. Never say never.

As for when Shazam will clash with Black Adam, it will likely be a while. For the moment, Levi set to reprise his superhero role for a SHAZAM! sequel, while Johnson has talked about filming a BLACK ADAM standalone feature some time in 2020.

Over the summer, Levi attended Germany’s CCXP Cologne convention, where he said “I can say that as far as I know, Black Adam is not going to be in the second Shazam!, because the idea is that they want to go and do a standalone Black Adam movie first." He then added, “Then it would kind of be, if we do a third Shazam! and a second Black Adam, kind of [parallel] like that, that’s where we would [meet].”

Are you excited at the prospect of Levi and Johnson trading blows as Shazam and Black Adam? How harshly do you think Johnson will tease Levi about their battle behind-the-scenes? Will Levi learn a thing or two and try his hand at a wrestling career? Remember, the world is full of infinite possibilities. Round one! Fight!