After mixed reviews, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods director says he’s “definitely done with superheroes for now”
Shazam! director David F. Sandberg is tired of superhero discourse and ready to move on
Aux News Shazam!
A superhero movie getting roasted by critics isn’t particularly remarkable (especially this year). But for some reason, the Shazam! Fury Of The Gods squad seems to be taking their 53% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes to heart. It’s a contradictory film: top of the box office but also a box office disappointment, critically panned but, apparently, audience-approved. Not to mention that comic book movies are the industry’s most insufferable lightning rod for discourse, with DC films in particular facing scrutiny. With all that going on, it’s perfectly reasonable that someone would want to get off the ride.
So it is for Shazam! director David F. Sandberg. “On Rotten Tomatoes I just got my lowest critic score and my highest audience score on the same film,” he posted to Twitter with a shrug emoji. “I wasn’t expecting a repeat of the first movie critically but I was still a little surprised because I think it’s a good film. Oh well. As I’ve been saying for a while now I’m very eager to go back to horror (as well as trying some new things). After six years of Shazam I’m definitely done with superheroes for now.”
It makes sense to want some change after six years of anything, the superhero scene being no exception. One of the criticisms leveled at the current blockbuster monoculture is that big companies snatch up promising directors at their creative peaks and keep them churning out generic, CGI-based action movies (See: Chloe Zhao, Taika Waititi, and now Daniels). The other side of the argument is that those directors are getting a big paycheck and some cultural cachet that can hopefully be spent making projects outside of superhero homogeneity. In other words, Sandberg has put in his time at the superhero industrial complex and has earned his way to greener pastures.
“Just to be clear, I don’t regret even for a second making the Shazam movies,” he clarifies on Twitter. “I’ve learned so much and gotten to work with some truly amazing people. Will forever be grateful that I got to direct two of these! They’ve been very challenging but valuable experiences. One thing I’ve really been looking forward to is disconnecting from the superhero discourse online. A lot of that stresses me out so much and it will be nice not having to think about that anymore.” And who could blame him?
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I look forward to Sandberg returning to horror shorts.What’s that? Features? Oh no… No, he should definitely go back to shorts.
Lights Out was fantastic.
I’m not sure if the critical reception would be a whole lot different had the movie been released when originally intended, but the box office may have been a different story in a world without COVID and related delays. Whatever, i’ll catch this when it streams or on demand at some point. I also wonder if the Black Adam movie had a negative impact on this film’s reception. Surely some folks saw that and decided they didn’t need any more Shazam stuff in their life.
Personally I didn’t really have any interest in paying to see it in a theater, I’ll catch it streaming once it gets there.
I think the biggest impact, apart from superhero fatigue, is that we all know that the DC films are getting a reboot so people just don’t give a fuck. I really liked the first Shazam! and it’s pretty much the only DCEU movie I even liked, but I imagine it’s getting the axe in whatever Gunn’s new vision is so I’m in no rush to see it in theaters when I’d rather see John Wick 4 or EEOAO now that it’s getting a post-Oscars run.It might be similar to the Netflix effect where a lot of the less “must see” shows are DOA because people have been conditioned to just not get attached to series, so they often don’t bother. I for sure have been burned so many times by them that I just don’t watch their original series anymore because what’s the point, especially when even the shit that does gangbusters for them – like The Witcher – is mismanaged to hell.
April 18, from what I read elsewhere, is when Shazam 2 streams, less than a month after it was released.
I give a thumbs down to the constant referring to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert as “Daniels.” Great directors. Annoying name.
I was fine with it until Taika started insisting everyone call him “The Waititi.”
And Scorsese asking to be called “These United Martin Scorseses” is just beyond the pale.
To be fair it’s how they refer to themselves
To be even fairer, *that’s* the most annoying part of it.
ok, Frasier Crane
“Daniels” would be a perfectly fine Disqus-comments-handle, underlining my point, thx
That almost makes it more annoying lol
Congratulations.
Does it bother you when people call them “the Coen brothers” and not “Joel and Ethan Coen?”It’s a helpful shorthand when they are a package deal AND they call themselves that.
“The Coen Brothers” has the word “the” in it. I’ve seen these guys just referred to as “Daniels” (without even “the”) which is ridiculous. They’re not related so there’s no brothers part. And it’s their first names. It’s like “The Johns” or “the Joes” or “the Michaels”. It’s fine for an on-set nickname. But their PR rep should have squashed it being used outside of that.
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“The other side of the argument is that those directors are getting a big paycheck and some cultural cachet that can hopefully be spent making projects outside of superhero homogeneity.”That might create name recognition for some, but if he wants to expand his audience for the types of movies he wants to go back to then I’m not sure “From the director of Shazam! comes…[insert horror title here]” does him much good. Bet the money was really nice, though. Can’t fault him for that.
I think its a good point that DC/Marvel want to attach well-known directors, but also somewhat limit them so that the movies look consistent (this is more of a Marvel thing). Raimi and Waititi got to flex their creativity a bit and I think it largely worked, even if DS2 was a script that was more interested in shoe-horning in other stuff than telling a cohesive story. But it’s the same issue that all franchises face – at what point do you go in a new direction and by extension, away from what was successful? Without getting into the TLJ debate *again*, it tried something different and was polarizing. I feel like comic book movies want these directors to thread the difficult needle of doing something new while being exactly the same as the stuff that worked. That just isn’t feasible in most cases or even fair.
Maybe next time he’ll remember the three magic words: gay don’t pay.
HEY DOES ANYBODY HERE WANT TO REHASH THE “SUPERHERO MOVIES ARE DYING” DEBATE LIKE WE DO ON EVERY AVCLUB STORY THAT’S EVEN TANGENTIALLY RELATED?
HERE’S THE THING ABOUT THE LAST JEDI. I HATED IT. AND EVERYONE THAT LIKED IS A PIECE OF SHIT THAT CAN DIE IN A DUMPSTER FIRE.
I AGREE, BUT HERE’S THE THING: YOUR HAIR IS STUPID AND YOUR MOTHER SMELLS LIKE BAD FRUIT
Let me get my rehashin’ hat.
If anyone needs me I’ll be in the rehashing dome!
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posting here in this thread is NOT the long-established
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The
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Sure am glad he held back on Mr. Mind until the third movie. 😒
Wow. “Done with superheroes for now”. No kidding. I wouldn’t have been able to piece that together considering your movie flopped. The universe it’s based in is dead. It was spoiled like 6 months ago to death. I won’t even get started on your awful cast. You waited until all of this came to pass and NOW you say your backing away? No kidding. You weren’t expecting it to be as good as the 1st film but you think it’s ‘good’!? What a joke. Stand by your pile and smell it or go back to making ‘good’ horror movies. I’ll search for them on Starz.
Good for him. The discourse around superhero films is so toxic.As for his film, it passes the time. It definitely has creative issues, like a weak arc for Billy and a disconnect between the performances of Asher Angel and Zachary Levi. And Lucy Liu is just there for the paycheck. If I had to guess why it underperformed even compared to Morbius, I’d put it on the poor marketing and the fact that everything from the old regime is living on borrowed time. After the Flash movie, everything changes. And then there’s the fact Black Adam, which never should have been a standalone film, was a big ol’ turd.
A shrug emoji is pretty much the only way for him to respond and stay sane, I suppose. It seems to me that audiences are genre savvy and have expectations tied into that, whereas critics don’t seem to have the same sense of context anymore. Which is fine, and: shrug emoji. It’s a shame for the AV Club to have lost its sense of commitment to discussing pop culture with a serious (but fun) critical lens. No high, no low, just interesting conversation days are long gone. Oh well.
what this and the really really weird, angry article about Rachel Zegler seem to be missing is the particularly toxic cult of Snyder fans that respond to anything DC related with hatred toward the people in/working on the movies for not… standing up for Zack Snyder? Maybe that’s not a huge deal when it comes to box office numbers and the general audience not caring about Shazam, but the “senselessly mean” comment from Zegler the other day seems more in response to the Snyder fans flooding their replies with weird stuff. Good for Sandberg for leaving it. He’s a good director and seems like a swell guy that loves what he does.
“It makes sense to want some change after six years of anything”.And yet when I tried to say that to my wife she got all hysterical!