Every Shazam! Fury Of The Gods Trailer Easter Egg, According To Director David F. Sandberg
Comic book movie fans spend countless hours poring over every trailer and every clip of every release, looking for Easter eggs and clues to what's coming. I absolutely include myself in this. With San Diego Comic-Con happening over the weekend, I fully admit to spending a whole lot of time watching trailers at reduced speeds.
But if you're excited about the upcoming Warner Bros./DC film "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," you don't need to worry about doing this yourself. Director David F. Sandberg has made a video for his YouTube channel that breaks it all down for you — including a disappearing and reappearing cape.
Many fans have already picked up on a couple of horror tributes like the Annabelle doll (Sandberg directed "Annabelle: Creation") and the Fulci sign (a nod to famous horror director Lucio Fulci), but there are some other great ones in there. Even more interesting is Sandberg's explanation for some of them, including some personal ones that are lovely.
S is for Starro
Our own Mike Shutt picked this up in his comprehensive trailer breakdown, but there are a few fun ones on the alphabet poster on the wall above Annabelle (whom Sandberg reminds us was in the first "Shazam!" as well). This is a doctor's office for kids, and there are a number of Wonder Woman plushies in there. I also see a Batman figure in the back as well as a plushie. Sandberg points out some of the things on the poster though, including S for Starro, who was the giant starfish villain in "The Suicide Squad," as well as T for Titano the Super-Ape. (There is also V for Vampire Bat, which I don't think is a reference. It's just fun.)
Sandberg also says he wanted to get a Detective Chimp Easter egg in there, as a chimp plushie "with a deerstalker hat," but couldn't because of clearance issues. Detective Chimp is another DC Comics character who has superhuman intelligence, and solves crimes with the Bureau of Amplified Animals. The director mentions that he learned about clearances when he put a "Watchman" reference in the form of that bloody happy face in the first film, and the powers that be said it wasn't okay.
A family affair
There are some cute ones in here that are personal to Sandberg as well. He points out the word Torpa on the wall, which is the school where he and his wife/collaborator Lotta Losten ("Lights Out") met, and Junedal, which is a school they both attended. In the shot of the kids walking together that follows, Eugene (Ian Chen) is wearing a shirt with the video game "Iconoclasts," which Sandberg's younger brother Joakim "Konjak" Sandberg created. He jokes that "you gotta support the family," which is a nod to the trailer: Shazam (Zachary Levi) references the family theme in the "Fast and Furious" movies while talking to Helen Mirren's Hespera. Mirren was, of course, in the most recent film in that franchise.
Sandberg mentions the group transformation scene with the kids and gives us a bit of trivia about it as well. He felt that the kids needed to be seen doing the transformation, and that they hadn't had it on screen. He used a bit of a deleted scene from the first film as a placeholder, and test screening audiences didn't seem to notice that the kids were wearing the wrong clothing and were much younger.
No capes!
One thing about trailers is that they're often done before the final effects pass is. Sandberg points out a shot that I definitely didn't catch, though you may have. There is a shot at 1:15 in the trailer that has Shazam being hit and flipping back through the air, landing in a heap on the ground. In a very quick moment, you'll notice that his cape disappears as he rolls back, then reappears when he's on the ground.
Sandberg explains that the VFX company that is working on that scene didn't have time to get it done, though they told him they got someone to paint out the wires and padding. He asked about the cape, but they hadn't noticed it. The stunts done on wires sometimes use a tiny cape that goes just over the shoulders so it doesn't tangle, but it has to be put in later.
I love finding out all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into a trailer, and I think it's awesome that Sandberg is willing to give us the inside scoop on both things he wanted in there, and things that weren't quite done.
"Shazam! Fury of the Gods" will hit theaters on December 21, 2022.