The face of Shazam’s Superman has finally been revealed!

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Everyone loves a quality after-credits sequence, and earlier this year DC and New Line delivered one of the most talked about scenes thanks to David F. Sandberg's SHAZAM! Back when the film was still in production, word began circulating that Henry Cavill's Superman was set to appear in the family-friendly superhero adventure starring Zachary Levi. However, scheduling conflicts had kept Cavill from participating, and so a stunt performer by the name of Ryan Handley was asked to step in as DC's Man of Tomorrow.

Handley recently shared a photo to his personal Instagram account that shows him on the set of SHAZAM! while standing suit-to-suit with Levi's kid-turned-superhero, Shazam. For a moment, imagine how mighty Handley must have felt while sporting Superman's iconic garb. Personally, I would have been whoosing around the set, allowing my spit-curl to flap in the breeze while launching myself off cafetria tables. Would I make for an obnoxious Man of Steel? Absolutely.

SHAZAM! director David F. Sandberg talked about the scene as part of the film's home release commentary by saying, “In the script, we had a little scene with Superman — but we only had a very narrow window to shoot this scene in the school, so we tried to make it work with Henry Cavill but schedules did not align.” Sandberg then continued, “I was like, ‘what do we do now? We need an ending to our movie,’ So we actually shot a little alternative ending in case we were going to use that where the kids see a hostage situation on TV and they just go out and fly off to deal with that, but it was like, ‘we don’t get the payoff with Shazam’s going to show up at school.’ So we did this thing with our Shazam stunt double in a Superman suit and we just cut out before you see his head. And it worked really well. I thought it was really funny. At first I was like, ‘This is never going to work, this is going to feel cheap,’ but cutting out on Freddy’s reaction like that, I think is better than what we had originally planned. Originally Superman is supposed to sit down, talk to the kids, Freddy was going to be like ‘I have so many questions,’ and then we were going to cut out, but this sudden cut to the credits just works so much better.”

What are your thoughts about Superman's cameo in SHAZAM!? Do you think it's funnier that they never showed his face and had decided to omit Freddy's reaction to the Man of Steel showing up at his school? What would your reaction be to Superman showing up beside you either at work or at school. Would you rush to grab your phone for a selfie? Would you pinch yourself to make certain that the scenario was real? Would you piss yourself? I'd like to think that I would pull off a combination of all three, like a boss.