Almost six months after the release of the first trailer at San Diego Comic-Con, DCEU’s twelfth cinematic installment, “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” has its action-packed second trailer released online. The sequel to the much-beloved superhero romp “Shazam” (2019), “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” promises higher stakes showcased on a much larger scale in the franchise’s return. With three new movie-exclusive characters set to make their DC Universe debut, and as the Shazam family faces a crisis of a very personal nature, the trailer leaves us with quite a lot to unpack.
‘Shazam: Fury Of The Gods’ Second Trailer Description
The trailer begins with a shot of Mount Olympus, looking grimmer than usual with a dark cloud swirling in the background, immediately followed by a shot of Lucy Liu’s character, Kalypso, dismounting from her dragon. She moves through an empty Philadelphia stadium and brings out what seems to be a golden apple from her inventory. As she thrusts the apple into the field, enormous tree-like structures start erupting and destroying the stadium along with nearby areas. Hespera’s voice can be heard in the background. She says they are at war, and that they will decimate everything. The champion of this realm will be unable to stop them.
The scene shifts to the cafeteria conversation sequence between Hespera and Billy Batson in his Shazam form, shown in the first trailer. Billy jokingly remarks about Hespera seeming to be very menacing with her conduct and promptly gets flown through a couple of blocks after getting kicked straight by the Goddess. As the opening credits of the movie start rolling, Billy’s narration is heard in the background. He narrates the events of the first movie, about getting powers from the Wizard and his siblings getting powers as well. A quick shot of a book of magic with the Shazam lighting insignia is shown, followed by a group shot of the siblings’ super team consisting of all six empowered avatars of Billy Batson, Mary Bromfield, Freddy Freeman, Darla Dudley, Pedro Peña, and Eugene Choi.
We see Kalypso’s dragon wreaking havoc in the city as Billy says to someone in the background that the daughters of Atlas are hunting them. Freddy Freeman is seen to be getting telekinetically pulled towards Hespera, who remarks that children had stolen the power of Gods – as she is seen to be restoring the blackened golden apple back to its original form. She also says to someone off-screen that the said person ripped the power from their father’s, aka Atlas’, core. Another Shazam super-sibling team shot is shown as the team utters the magic word to get transformed into their empowered self. A sequence of Freddy and Hespera is shown where from his empowered form, Freddy gets reverted to his original human form by the latter.
The Wizard is seen, and he warns Billy that their world will not survive the catastrophe, a glimpse of which is shown as Hespera and Kalypso’s forces tear the city apart. Billy takes the fight to the Goddesses as he addresses Kalypso as Khaleesi as he rams both her and her dragon through a building. Rachel Zegler’s character, Anthea, is shown to be channeling her powers through her hands to create distance between her and the other two daughters of Atlas. Freddy is seen with the Wizard, and both of them are shown to be experiencing some sort of reality manipulation. Once again, Freddy is seen with the Goddesses, as they seem to be taking him hostage, as Billy fails to break through the barrier that is created around the city. Mary, sitting in the library of Eternity, remarks she is unsure how they can tackle powers like these.
We see Billy asking the Wizard to take the powers back, a request which visibly staggers the latter. Another shot of the realm of Gods is shown, where a seemingly imprisoned Wizard is seen to be casting a spell. The Wizard replies to Billy that he had spent millennia looking for the worthy champion and that Billy knows what must be done. Much like Freddy, Mary Bromfield is reverted to her human form mid-flight by Kalypso, and as she freefalls from a significant height, Billy rescues her. An anxious Freddy asks Billy about his course of action, and Billy’s remark hints at both his determined demeanor and impending danger. Kalypso goads Billy into a fight, and a myriad of mythological creatures are shown, ranging from Unicorns, and Manticores to Minotaurs, Harpies, etc. Billy shouts the words “Shazam!” and is seen holding the Wizard’s staff to push through the magical shield with great effort as he engages with Kalypso in battle. The trailer ends with a swift uppercut by Billy on the face of the hulking dragon.
Trailer Breakdown
The Mount Olympus shot at the beginning sets the grim tone of the trailer, which, although it has some light-hearted moments, seems serious and foreboding in general. Greek mythology is a significant part of the character Shazam, as the powers derived from the gods, which were imbued upon Billy by the Wizard, are from the Greek pantheon. One of the gods, the Titan Atlas, who carries the world on his shoulders, is one of the main sources of Shazam’s powers, as the Stamina of Atlas is integral to his moniker Shazam (SHAZAM, the word standing for different characters and gathered respective expertise). In the movie, the daughters of Atlas—Hespera, Kalypso, and Anthea—will square off with Billy and his family to wrest control of those powers.
In the DC universe, the explicit mention of Atlas’ daughters had not been made earlier. The movie introduces them exclusively for the first time and, in doing so, takes reference from the legend of Hesperides of the Greek myth. Hesperides, otherwise known as “Nymphs of the Evening,” are the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis (varying account changes parentage, but in this context, we will consider Atlas). The Hesperides were tasked to guarding and tending to a blissful garden where mystical golden apples are produced from a tree. They were assisted by the dragon Ladon in their duty to protect the garden. The Golden Apple of discord is mentioned in the myth as the initiator of the Trojan War. The legend of the garden of Hesperides is also a part of the eleventh labor of Hercules, the demigod who is also associated with the power of Shazam (Strength of Hercules). In the trailer, therefore, it makes sense that tree-like protrusions engulf and destroy the city after Kalypso inserts the Golden apple inside the ground.
The dragon seen to be Kalypso’s steed might be Ladon, the aforementioned protector of the garden of Hesperides. We have not seen yet how the Wizard managed to harness the powers of the Old Gods to create the champion of magic, Shazam, but in doing so, he might have unwillingly disturbed the stately grandeur of Olympus, as suggested by the darkened atmosphere in the background of the place, which is also suggested by the blackened condition of the Golden apple in Hespera’s hand. Therefore, the Hesperides have a personal score to settle with the Wizard and, by extension, Billy as his family.
The stadium destruction scene is bound to remind viewers of another DC property: the destruction the villainous Bane caused in the movie “The Dark Knight Returns.” Now, as we remember, in the climactic battle of the first movie, Billy shared his powers with his adopted siblings to protect them from Dr. Sivana and the Seven Deadly Sins. Billy also breaks the staff of the Wizard in half so that it can’t be used for evil purposes. In the trailer, we see the daughters of Atlas have gotten hold of the staff and managed to restore it to its former condition. They use it effectively to strip the champions of their powers, as we see Mary and Freddy reverting to human forms. Can this be done to Billy too, or is his hold on magical properties stronger because of being the chosen one? That remains to be seen. In comics, there were instances like this, as seen in the series written by Judd Winnick, “Trials of Shazam,” where Mary was paralyzed after her powers were suddenly taken mid-flight, and the respective gods associated with powers took Freddy’s test as the champion of magic. As the trailer shows, Freddy is going to have an important role in the movie, as we see him getting taken by the Hesperides. Later, we see him and Anthea facing the dragon together, which suggests that during captivity, he might have convinced the youngest daughter of Atlas to join humanity’s side. Speaking of Anthea, the Triskele symbol visible in her palm, which symbolizes continuous movement, hints about her powers of creating or bridging distance, as shown in the trailer. Mary Bromfield, aka Mary Marvel, the eldest and most mature of the Shazam siblings, will have an important role as well, as we see her in the Library of Eternity searching for ways to turn the tides of the battle to their favor.
The Wizard’s presence in the movie is another significant aspect that should be addressed. Early in the first installment, “Shazam” (2019), the Wizard imbued Billy with the powers, and his physical form disintegrated. In the sequel, the appearance we see him in as he interacts with Billy and his family might be his spiritual form, similar to the comics where he acts as Billy’s counselor in times of distress. We will get a backstory regarding him harvesting the power of Gods as well, which also might be the reason for his imprisonment in the realm of Gods. We also see Wizard assisting Freddy in a sequence of reality manipulation, which also suggests the Wizard’s role as counsel. In the trailer, Billy is shown to suffer from self-doubt; as a teenager, he feels unfit to tackle these larger-than-life dangers. The Wizard asserts his confidence in Billy and subtly professes how long (five millennia, to be exact) he had searched for a worthy soul to be the champion of magic, and Billy is the chosen one. The sequel will see the Wizard, played by Djimon Hounsou, having a more substantial role, and fans are excited to see more of him.
The movie will also make full use of Shazam’s lore of mythological and fantastical elements, as we see Greek mythological creatures like the Minotaur, Manticore, and Unicorn traversing through Philadelphia (The setting of the first movie and of this one too). The Golden apple might have brought the Garden of Hesperides to Philly and all the creatures that reside along with it. Billy referring to Kalypso as Khaleesi, aka Mother of Dragon, is a nifty tongue-in-cheek reference to “The Game of Thrones,” but I guess we’ll prefer Lucy Liu as the better dragon rider. Another mythology-based DC superhero, Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, is rumored to make an appearance in the movie, and it makes sense in the context of how heavily mythological elements are present in “Shazam: Fury of Gods.” We wish “Wonder Woman 84” also worked with mythological inspiration, given how those elements constitute Diana’s lore in comics. During the end portions of the trailer, we see Freddy to be anxious about Billy’s decision, and later Billy heading to battle wielding the Wizard’s staff, which suggests Billy gathering his resolve to become the champion he was destined to be and ready to sacrifice everything to save his family and the world.
The trailer ends with a great shot of Shazam punching Kalypso’s dragon in the face, recreating the classic Captain Marvel era covers of the character fighting monsters and other fantastical creatures, thereby embracing the roots of the character. It’s a shame that even in this movie, we won’t see Black Adam interact with the Shazam family, given how integral both characters are to each other’s origin and arc. However, we are expecting cameos of some mythological figures, and if we get really lucky, the director David Sandberg might introduce our favorite anthropomorphic tiger, Tawky Tawny. The trailer has already made fans immensely excited, and it remains to be seen how the future DC Universe might integrate Shazam into its world. Hopefully, James Gunn, as the CCO of DC Studios, will hint that this month as some announcements are on schedule.
