Zachary Levi faces off against Dr. Sivana in new Shazam! image

With the release of AQUAMAN last week, Warner Bros.' next DC hero to make the leap to the big-screen will be Shazam, the larger-than-life character who is in fact the alter-ego of 14-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel). SHAZAM! looks to be significantly lighter fare than much of what we've previously seen in the DCEU, and I'm curious to see how much they embrace the comedy. Empire has a new image from the upcoming film which finds Shazam (Zachary Levi) facing off against the villainous Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong). Check it out!

As for what Dr. Sivana has in store for Shazam, well, it seems that the evil genius is plotting to make Shazam's powers his own. Ruh oh. We've seen Warner Bros.' DC films push further away from their dark and gritty origins over the past several movies, and Zachary Levi has previously explained why now is the perfect time for a more light-hearted hero to take to the big-screen.

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."

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.