Segal’s Shazam! Is Serious

February 1st, 2008 | by admin |

Original Post here: Snikkkt!

Director Peter Segal revealed details about his upcoming comic-book adaptation Shazam! during an interview with IGN Movies. Segal, who is currently in post-production on the big-screen version of Get Smart, said that while Shazam! may have some light moments, it won’t be an all-out comedy like his previous films.

“I think in even some of the best dramas there’s always a sense of humor that you can bring to it,” Segal told the site. “I’ve read some people who’ve said I’m trying to make a lighter, funny Shazam!, which is not true. I want to stay very faithful to the source material there.”

But that doesn’t mean that Segal won’t bring his trademark sensibilities to the project.

“It is a 13-year-old boy who becomes a superhero, and I think there is an element of Big in that, and I think there always was in the comic book,” he said. “When Stan Lee came to me many, many years ago about doing Fantastic Four … I asked Stan: ‘Why me? Why Chris Columbus originally before Chris handed it to me?’ And he said, ‘Because all of my heroes have flaws and in those flaws there’s a sense of humor and humanity.’ And that’s what he saw in some of my work. So I think that would be the common theme, no matter what the story is. If I could bring some of what I learned over the past decade or so to those kinds of stories, I think I can help tell those stories even better.”

Segal also said that he’s considering Get Smart cast member Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for the role of Shazam’s arch enemy, Black Adam. He plans to let Johnson read the script after the writers’ strike is over and another draft can be written.

“I just started telling him the story and I thought that he might be a great Black Adam,” Segal said. “And what’s fascinating now is even though the comic book was created and born in 1939 with Captain Marvel as the star, today Geoff Johns has made [Black Adam] one of the preeminent bad guys in several comics. And so that puts even more pressure on Dwayne for that role, in a good way.”

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