A familiar face turned up in the high-flying sequel!
Spoiler alert! Warning: spoilers ahead of Shazam!: Fury of the Gods. Don't read on if you don't want to know!
After that Superman fake-out in the first movie, Shazam!: Fury of the Gods director David F. Sandberg knew that if he was going to pull off another DC cameo in the sequel, it would have to be for real this time.
And he pulled it off! Just as all hope seemed lost in the final act, Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), appeared to save Shazam (Zachary Levi) and leave her favorite fanboy swooning.
"We wanted to poke fun at the first movie where we had to obscure Superman’s face," Sandberg told ET's Ash Crossan ahead of the film's release. "On this one, I actually didn't believe it was going to happen, because she was in the script from day one but... Gal couldn't be there [for some of the filming] so we had to do it with a stand in. I was like, 'This is going to be the exact same thing as in the first one where you never see the head!'"
"But then we were actually able to shoot with Gal and I mean, that enables us to have fun with it," he added, "because if she hadn't and we had teased all of these things -- people would've been so mad."
It's a fun moment, but does it mean anything for the future of the DCEU -- particularly now that James Gunn and Peter Safran have taken the helm at DC Studios and started shaking up some of the franchises?
"What [Gunn and Safran] have said is that what we've done in these two Shazam movies doesn't contradict anything they're doing with their new plans," Sandberg shared. "You could do more Shazam movies if you wanted to. So, we'll see how that all works out. I don't know the full plans, I just know that there's nothing in these movies that would interfere."
As for Gadot's future as Wonder Woman? "I don't know, but I think she'll be around," Sandberg offered.
Fury of the Gods' mid-credits scene also leaves things pretty open-ended for Shazam himself, who gets a visit from Peacemaker A.R.G.U.S. agents Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) who invite him to join the Justice....Society.
Shazam agrees, despite being a little bummed that it's not the team-up that includes Wonder Woman -- though it remains to be seen what that means for the character's future.
"I just do one thing at a time," Sandberg said. "When we did the first [Shazam] there was no thoughts of like, 'Oh, what's the second one going to be?' Just focus on one movie and make it have a proper ending then figure out whatever comes next."
However, he did admit that he is "absolutely" into the idea of spinning off one of Shazam's side characters.
"There are all different characters we could do something like that with," he pondered, naming Darla (Meagan Good/Faithe Herman) or Freddy (Adam Brody/Jack Dylan Grazer) as good candidates for fun adventures. "I mean, they're all pretty cool characters that you could do more with."
Shazam!: Fury of the Gods is in theaters now.
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