Shazam: Fury of the Gods star Zachary Levi defends James Gunn and Peter Safran amid fan backlash

Last Updated on December 30, 2022

The state of DC films and its fans are currently at odds as the decisions made by CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran rile up fans. The last straw seemed to come from letting go of Henry Cavill as the universe’s Superman right after he would announce his return. While fans tweet with the hashtag “#firejamesgunn,” one of the current universe stars who came to his defense is Shazam: Fury of the Gods star, Zachary Levi.

Variety reports that Levi addressed this on an Instagram Livestream on Thursday night. The Shazam star told fans,

You have no idea the reasonings behind any of the decisions that are going on. The amount of conjecture and rumor mill and drama and nonsense that keeps getting spun around out there on Instagram and Twitter is laughable. It is unbelievably laughable. So I would just say be patient and give them some space and some time to try and really make something special. And I think something that DC deserves to have and something that [Zack] Snyder tried to do, and it just didn’t ultimately materialize, guys.”

Gunn had to dispel the rumor that his decision to jettison Cavill from the franchise was not influenced by his opinion of him. Levi would address this by saying that they are “not just making decisions because they like someone or don’t like someone. They’re making decisions based on what is best for Warner Bros., DC, that entire studio and entity and trying to make as many fans, as much of an audience, happy as they can.”

Levi then adds, “If you’re out there and really like what happened before, you can do that. That’s fine. But realize that there’s a lot of people who didn’t like those things, and we should always be trying to tap into as much audience as possible, make as many people happy as possible. That’s what we’re in entertainment for, and that’s what I think Peter and James are trying to do. And it’s not an easy position. They got handed all these things that were already in a lot of conflict. So guys, just fucking give ’em a break. Take it easy. Take a breath. It’s the holidays, for god’s sake. Just go enjoy what the holidays are, give them some time to enjoy the holidays, and let’s see what happens on the other side of this.”