Wait, Is 'Shazam!' A Christmas Movie?
When Shazam! opens in theaters on Friday, moviegoers are going to be reaching for their phones to check the date in that liminal space between the end of the movie and the post-credits scene. They’ll want to confirm it is in fact April 5th, because the movie very much puts audiences in the late-December, Christmas spirit.
The DC superhero comedy, about an orphaned teenager who inherits the powers of a wizard realm and can blast into a overly-muscled Zachary Levi, stages a lot the action in a Philadelphia redolent with Santa Claus, jammed toy stores and malls, homemade decorations, and a climate-questionable outdoor Christmas carnival. It’s as if Jingle All The Way got bit by the dog monster from Ghostbusters and had a child with Superman. (Which is also to say: Great movie. Bring the kids!).
But the Christmas emphasis in a pre-summer blockbuster out in April may have some audience members wondering if Shazam! had been originally intended to land around the holidays. Not really! As the movie’s director David F. Sandberg told Cinemablend, Shazam!'s themes lent themselves to a Christmastime setting. “It feels like a Christmas movie to me. It's about family, and finding your family, you have these orphans or foster kids... and Christmas is very much a family holiday, so it sort of ties it all together in that way,” he’d told the site last year. And Warner Brothers already had a good-time superhero flick lined up in December in Aquaman.
Shazam!’s not the first big-budget flick to push a Christmas vibe during a warm weather release. Die Hard--considered a classic Christmas movie amongst fans of the action classic--came out in July. But you can count on it airing every December in perpetuity. With it’s family-forward themes and gee-whiz humor, Shazam! can likely expect to do the same.
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