Shazam 2's Release Date Delay Creates A New Problem

Shazam 2 is one of the latest movies in the Warner Bros. release schedule to be delayed, but the change brings one particular problem that probably no other film will have to deal with. The coronavirus pandemic has forced all major studios to push most of the releases that were supposed to hit theaters this year to 2021 and 2022. For instance, Marvel decided to change its Phase 4 slate, while other studios contemplate the possibility of streaming or VOD releases. Warner Bros. took its time to announce what the DC slate will look like, but finally revealed that highly anticipated titles like The Batman, The Flash, and Shazam 2 will be moved.

After the success of the first Shazam movie, a sequel was confirmed in December 2019. The film is in early stages of production and few details are known as of now, but the story will follow the journey of Billy Batson (Asher Angel) as the gleeful superhero Shazam (Zachary Levi) and his duty to incarnate the superpowered adult body that was granted to him after proving himself worthy of the moniker. His foster siblings - who receive similar powers at the end of the first movie - are one of the most likely elements to make a comeback for the sequel, but that's where the problem lies.

The biggest issue that threatens Shazam 2 is that the young actors will inevitably grow faster than the parts they're playing. Principal photography for the first movie started in January 2018, while the announced release for Shazam 2 is November 2022 - with no indications of when the production can begin filming. Sure, they could find a way to write some modifications into the story to accommodate a slightly longer in-story timespan than previously intended, but one of the key aspects of the Shazam mythos is that the heroes are children who can transform into adult superheroes. Four years of teenage growth make a huge difference when childhood is such a central part of the story, and it could mean that part of the magic gets lost the closer the children are to their adult counterparts.

Shazam runs through an alley with the foster children in Shazam!

This is a problem IT Chapter 2 struggled with, but the sequel came just two years after the first installment. The appearance of the Losers' Club as kids in the sequel takes place in the same time frame of the first movie, depicted as different perspectives and complementary additions to those moments. To achieve this, the film had to be fast-tracked as much as possible - and even then they still had to digitally de-age the child actors from IT, including Jack Dylan Grazer (who plays Billy Batson's friend Freddy Freeman in Shazam), to get the same look.

Shazam 2 already needed to be released soon enough to mitigate the aging issue, but now the inevitable delays only intensify the problem. Besides the narrative relevance of the actors' age, their talent and chemistry in Shazam are one of the elements that the sequel can't afford to give up. Recasting the actors would break the familiar bonds that the first movie set up and it would also add them to the long list of DCEU characters whose actors have left or are in danger of being replaced, such as Ben Affleck's Batman, Jared Leto's Joker, Will Smith's Deadshot, Amber Heard's Mera, and possibly Henry Cavill's Superman.

Warner Bros. can't let this critical issue go ignored, but delaying Shazam 2 is still as unavoidable as it is intelligent. Nothing supersedes the well-being of the cast and crew and it's certain that the ingenious minds behind the movie will find a creative solution. On a positive note, one benefit derived from the delay is that the film will no longer have to compete with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2 and Black Panther 2 in 2022. The wait is long, but for now, the comics may have a few hints at what could happen with Doctor Sivana and Mr. Mind in the sequel.

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