The Big Picture - 'Shazam!’ and the Future of the DCEU With David F. Sandberg | Interview

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Sean is joined by Miles Surrey to assess the landscape of DC films after the breakout success of ‘Shazam!' (2:00). Then, 'Shazam!' director David F. Sandberg swings by to talk about how he turned his terrifying short, 'Lights Out,' into a feature-film career in Hollywood, the movies that inspired him, and his future in the DCEU (13:30). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: David F. Sandberg and Miles Surrey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? It's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. April is a huge month for TV, and starting this weekend, the Recapables feed returns to give you in-depth analysis on your favorite TV shows, including Killing Eve, Billions, and many more. There will also be a special Precapables series on the Recapables feed on the final season of Game of Thrones, where our staff forecasts what will happen every Sunday on the show. So make sure to subscribe now before the premiere of Killing Eve and Game of Thrones on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you're making stuff at home. They seem nice, but don't buy it. It gets real Game of Thrones around here. Dude, just messing around.

You look at me and you're like, why so dark? You're a disabled foster kid. You've got it all. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about expanded universes. I've got a two-part show today. In the first part, I'll be talking to my colleague, Miles Suri, about the movie Shazam.

And then right after that, I'll be joined by the director of Shazam, David Sandberg, a very talented Swedish fellow who made a couple of movies before this one among them, Annabelle Creation. Sandberg's taking a step up with Shazam, which is of course in the DCEU, which is a series of movies that have included Aquaman and Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice. And to join me to talk about DC and Shazam is, as I said, Miles Surrey. Miles, what's up? Thanks for having me. I'm really glad you're here because DC finds itself at an interesting inflection point, I would say. I thought Shazam was a very fun and entertaining movie, but it did not really feel like anything that had come in the DC universe before. Can you kind of explain to me what Shazam is and what it's trying to do?

Sure. I mean, I kind of had to do the same thing after watching the movie because um like right around the time the post credit scene with a evil caterpillar happened i was kind of like i have no idea what any of this stuff is so uh thankfully micah does have a a piece on the ringer.com a great website uh kind of breaking down the kind of shazam origins but yeah he's uh he was actually originally called captain marvel and like in the movie there was like a wizard named shazam who gave him like all these superpowers but when he sort of got folded into uh dc comics because marvel had its own captain marvel he then became shazam but the whole spiel is basically the same thing. The wizard gives you powers, you activate it by saying Shazam, and then I guess in the big screen version, you just become buff Zachary Levi. Yeah, I didn't even know buff Zachary Levi was going to be a thing that I would

ever have to talk about. I can't say when I was watching Chuck 10 years ago that this ever crossed my mind that he would be a superhero. I think tonally, this movie is pretty significantly different from Superman versus Batman and the Justice League films and even Wonder Woman, which I thought was, you know, is a very charming and obviously hugely successful movie, but there is a lightness in the tone and it's not quite as operatically goofy as Aquaman was. You know, what did you make of the kind of movie that Shazam was trying to be? Yeah, no, I thought it was fun. It kind of had like a almost throwback Amblin Entertainment coming of age vibe,

like something you would see from like Amblin in like the 80s. But with the caveat that instead of a kid going on an adventure or something, he can just become a superhero. But I thought it was, you know, it was kind of an appropriate tone for the kind of hero that this guy is. And I kind of like that, you know,

a kid, like a teenager becoming Shazam, like he has like a bit of an aimlessness to him at the beginning. Like there's not the sort of great power with great power comes great responsibility type speech. He just sort of has to learn things on the fly. Yeah, I mean, one of the first things that the character does after he realizes his powers is he just goes to a convenience store and buys beer and candy. And, you know, the movie is clearly pitched as sort of what if big but superhero and it's very effective in showing us

like well maybe not what the real world ramifications would be because it's a little bit different in tone than the real world but some of the like aspirations that you have as an adolescent and the things that you wish you could do when you were 13 shazam does for the first hour of this movie and the movie ultimately just becomes a story about like friendship and the way that we act bigger and older than we are and what we can get away with in that time. And then it does ultimately turn into a little bit of a superhero movie. What did you make of the kind of balancing of those tones? Yeah, I mean, I think I did prefer sort of the first half of the movie in that respect, because, you know, there are so many superhero movies out there.

And I feel like for the most part, it sort of gets derivative to when the movie gets to the guy discovers his powers you know like Peter Parker like scaling skyscrapers type of thing but it was fun for Shazam because it felt very like a very genuine response to like what if a 14 year old kid suddenly had powers like yeah he would try to buy beer. He would go to a strip club and, like, beam about the chicken wings because this is a PG-13 movie. You know, if he's in a world where Superman and Batman exist and he doesn't really know what to do, if he can't, like, find people to save, he's going to try to make cash and become a YouTube star. It was an interesting approach, but I think like I preferred that half of the movie versus like the Mark Strong shows up with seven CGI deadly sin archetypes or whatever.

And it's time to punch him a lot. Yeah, I agree. I don't think that part was as effective. It's funny because it feels like a movie like this, which is not exactly a reinvention, but is a, is a reconsidering of what these kinds of movies can be still ultimately does arrive

at its conclusion at the notion that it needs to feature a lot of punching and a lot of fighting the bad guy I'm curious to see if as we grow inside the DCEU I guess much

like Shazam if they'll ever change the the the approach that they take to having kind of the final showdown in the final 45 minutes of the movie. That was also one of my struggles, honestly, with Wonder Woman, which I thought, as I said, was really clever and well made. And then ultimately just turned into Diana fighting like a demon monster who was played by David Thewlis. What do you make of the decisions that DC is now making to singularize each of their movies. I mean, it's interesting because like, you know, they did a pretty quick pivot from like

fast tracking their Justice League movie, which, you know, end up being like relative to the expectations, a bit of a bomb for them. And also it didn't really track well critically. But, you know, they're kind of like making these films that have this very little interconnectivity like Aquaman, you know, was only really playing the seeds for Aquaman 2. And I guess a Trench spinoff, which I could go on like a 20-minute tangent about the Trench, but I won't. I'm pumped about the Trench.

Can't wait for the Trench. And like kind of the same thing with Wonder Woman and its sequel. And it feels that way with Shazam 2. You know, if it does well enough at the box office, like I feel like it's just leading into Shazam 2 or maybe a Black Adam movie, which is a Shazam villain that's supposed to be played by Dwayne Johnson. If you look at the DCU projects that are in the air, like a rebooted Suicide Squad with James Gunn, a new Batman movie, perhaps a Flash movie, there's all these other projects. The one glaring omission

is there are no plans to make a Justice League 2. And not to say that would never happen again, but clearly like the DCEU right now is content just kind of throwing some stuff out there and seeing what resonates with audiences. Yeah, if you look down their slate, we talked about this a little bit during the release of Aquaman, but I was just in Vegas at CinemaCon and they were very proud of the approach that they were taking with telling their stories because the next handful of movies they have is, of course, Shazam.

And they also have Joker, which is coming in October, which also feels quite standalone and seems to have virtually nothing in common with a movie like Shazam. And then there's also Birds of Prey, which is Kathy Yan's story of sort of five superhero team up that will also include Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. And that tonally and visually looks completely different from those other two movies. And so they've taken this decision to not just make that Flash movie and not just make whatever inevitable Green Lantern movie

and with the same kind of stormy visual aesthetic that Zack Snyder created, but to just kind of individuate each story, which is what a lot of comic books are actually. You know, a lot of comic books have separate illustrators. They have separate writers. Their tones are quite different. You know, Amazing Spider-Man could be quite different from X-Men

and Superman could be quite different from, you know, Detective Comics and what's going on with Batman. And of course, I guess next year, late next year, we'll have The Batman, which is Matt Reeves' Batman movie. Do you, you know, you very closely track the comic book films for us. Is it more interesting to you if all of this stuff fits together? Or do you like it better if it stands alone and the movies get to be what they are? Well, I kind of, like, maybe I just have a bit of a Marvel fatigue

just because, like, it feels like we've been preparing for end game, like just, just forever. But, um, yeah, I, I kind of like this approach because, you know, like if something doesn't, you know, resonate with, with audiences, like I, I personally wasn't as big of a fan as, as Wonder Woman as other people were, which is fine. You know, I, I like parts of it, but, you know, for the most part, people really enjoyed it. And I think, you know, it's an interesting approach. I think what will probably be most interesting is with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam,

they've all been pretty well received and they've made a good amount of money. So I'm curious what happens, like how the DCEU responds when something flops with critics, audiences in the box office. Do they like shake it off? Or if it's like, if it's embracing a certain tone,

like, you know, let's say Joker is actually quite terrible. And, you know, it's like a Scorsese pastiche that just kind of doesn't work. Like, will the DCEU kind of avoid being that experimental again? I'm kind of curious to see

what happens when there's kind of like a speed bump on the road for them. I am too. It's an interesting question because it does seem like with Shazam and most likely Joker and a handful of these other movies, they don't come with that $250 million production price tag. You know, they're definitely smaller movies with more modest ambitions, at least in terms of the execution of the movie. And so the risk is lower. So if let's say Joker is not the sort of world beating cultural colossus that many would have us believe this week, um, that's okay. I think that they could probably survive that. And it's an, you're right. It is a really interesting pivot away from all of that interconnectiveness. Um, is there anything else about Shazam that you,

you really liked and then you responded to? Yeah, I really like that. I thought Zachary Levi was just so good at capturing basically a kid in a swole adult's body. He did it so well. There were times where he almost felt too childlike for a guy who's still 14 years old, but you could tell he was just having such a blast. I would have never expected Chuck would be a swole superhero, but I never expected Jim from The Office

to make a silent horror movie and also become buff for a Michael Bay film. I guess sitcom stars, they can transform. Yeah, could you cast a sitcom, a dweebish sitcom figure into an, into a superhero movie right now? Is there anybody who springs to your mind? Like is Jim Parsons our next Green Lantern, you think? Oh God, no, please no. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like, if someone from Parks and Rec could do

that transformation that isn't Chris Pratt. I mean he's he's just forgettable at this point. He's like a discount Brandon Frazier. But he has done that as well I mean in many ways. I guess maybe if

if Adam Scott were cast as as Galactus that would probably be that's as close as we're going to get. Sign me up. Miles thank you for

breaking down all things Shazam. I appreciate it. Thank you. Now let's go to my conversation with director David Sandberg. But first, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Philo. Say goodbye to expensive TV bills and horrible customer service with Philo.

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You can start your free trial instantly with just a phone number. Philo is available on Roku, iOS, Fire TV, Android, and Apple TV. To start your free trial, visit philo.tv backslash big picture. That's P-H-I-L-O dot TV backslash big picture. Delighted to be joined by David Sandberg. David, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. David, I have a question. You're from Sweden. Do they have DC Comics in Sweden? They sure do. Yeah. It's kind of interesting though, in that they didn't really advertise it as much in that. Okay. This is Marvel. This is DC.

At least not what I can remember because I've been sort of fascinated by this whole sort of DC versus Marvel that some fans are, you know, uh, into, uh, cause I didn't really realize that when I was a kid, you know,

like I had this comic book that I really loved that was Superman and Spider-Man fighting together. And to me, that wasn't anything weird. It was like, oh, from two universes. To me, that was just, yeah, they're all superheroes. Of course they're... Was that some sort of crossover event that happened between the two publishers? So, were you deeply familiar with Shazam as a kid? Was it something you knew about?

I wasn't, no. I mean, he's... Yeah, no, I didn't really learn about him until i i got this job basically you know it was the studio that pitched it to me uh they asked if i would be interested in and they said that it's basically uh big but with superpowers but sounded awesome but yeah i'd like i'd heard the name and i'd seen like pictures of him and or you know he shows up a little here and there but yeah he's kind of fallen off to the wayside yeah i want to talk about that but let's let's go back a little bit so obviously you've made two films before this in america and as i understand it you basically got

your start because you had a viral hit short film that then turned into a full-length film yeah my wife lotta and i we uh we made a little short uh in our home in gothenburg for called lights out that we made for no money at all. It was just two and a half minutes short. Made it for like an online contest. But after we uploaded it to YouTube, a couple of months after that, it just went viral. Like we just saw it, you know, I was like, I saw someone on Reddit link to it. I was like, oh, someone discovered our short.

And we went to like Vimeo to check the views and it was uh like 17 000 i was like holy i mean that is so many people and then like a minute later it was 70 000 and then it just kept going and going and going like like the day after or something we were sitting there sort of refreshing the page to see it go over a million and it didn't stop it just kept going um and you know i was telling lot of that know, I've heard of people, like, getting representation in Hollywood through things like this. And I think it was actually the morning

after I mentioned that to Lotte that we got our first email from, like, a manager over here. And then we got tons of emails from agents and producers and studios and actors and all kinds of people um and uh yeah that just started our whole journey was that the goal when you entered the contest was your expectation that you would win you know i thought like something like this wouldn't happen with just a two and a

half minute short like the plan was basically that you know i tried getting money from like the swedish film institute and places like this for uh to make longer shorts and they you know they were like well you're too inexperienced for for the professional money or uh or you too too old for beginner money and it was like well what am i supposed to do so you know look then i started making things on our own and the plan was basically to all right we'll keep doing these little shorts. And then hopefully we'll get some money to do a longer short. And maybe that can eventually be turned into like a Swedish feature. And then somewhere way down the line, maybe you get a shot at Hollywood.

But instead, yeah, I was like, I keep saying that it's like hitting the warp zone and Super Mario Brothers where it's like, oh, you just get to jump to the end level right away. Yeah. It's so fascinating. Did you know that you wanted to make a sort of genre driven stuff when you were, you know, the expectation that you make a film in Sweden, was it that you do a genre movie, a horror movie, something like that? That's what I was trying to make, make horror movies in Sweden.

Like I, that's what I did with my friends you know when we were younger uh but i think that's part of why it didn't work out in sweden because i am sort of a genre fan and i like very you know more audience pleasing movies that's kind of what i want to make and in sweden you know since it is sort of government grants and all of this it's a bit like um you know they make more sort of important films about sort of society and people and you know a lot of alcoholics and you know you know it was probably a better fit for hollywood just because i i have a more commercial kind of inclination i guess so did you do the tours and visit all the studios and say like i'd like to expand lights out into a full-length feature well i mean what happened was

that as soon as we had reps here they were like hey can you guys come over here we have a bunch of people we'd like you to meet and we were like

we don't have any money we can't fly to the US what were you doing professionally how were you earning your living so Lotte was she was working

in a group home for people with disabilities and I was sort of a freelancing animator I guess because I had you know And I was sort of a freelancing animator, I guess, because I had, you know, when I was a teen, or my early 20s, I guess, I tried to make movies with friends,

but now all of a sudden they all had jobs and stuff. So it got harder to get everyone together. So I started doing animation because that was something I could do all by myself. And there was nothing to stop me you know and i actually had some viral success with a with a short that i made in swedish but because it wasn't swedish it only got you know to scandinavia but that led me to uh be able to actually get some jobs doing like animated little commercials and things like that like because it

was comedy basically so companies saw that and like hey we like your your humor and your style can you make like a little commercial for us for for online so i was trying to do that but it wasn't really enough to pay the bills but i tried did you have a culture shock when you were suddenly a hollywood filmmaker like that's a pretty radical change i mean i had never been on a professional film set before until I was the director of it. You know, it's kind of like that nightmare when you're like realizing you're standing in front of a crowd of people and you're supposed to do a presentation and you're in your underwear kind of thing. Because, you know, I, yeah, I'd never been on a professional film set. I didn't really know how

it worked. I've always been interested in and try to read about it and look watch a lot of like behind the scenes things and listen to commentaries on dvds but there's only so much you can learn from that so you know before we started shooting lights out i had to take my first ad aside and like ask him like so when do i say action because i how did he respond? Well, he was very nice about it and sort of explained. He wasn't like, get this guy out of here? No, I mean, I had hired him, so yeah. No, but, you know, okay, so they say sound speed and then like, yeah, the camera operator says set or ready and then you can say action.

Did you have a lot of self-doubt at this time? Oh, I still do every day um no no tons of self-doubt and uh yeah and there was even some friction with some of the crew where it's like i think there was a little bit of a feeling of oh we're working for this guy you know and kind of slumming it in a, you know, $5 million horror movie. So it was a bit of friction and I had to kind of prove myself a little bit. And, you know, I remember having an argument with some people in the camera department about cameras where it's like, no, I actually know how cameras work. Maybe I don't know, like, all of the stuff about how film sets work, but i still know how to tell stories and i know some technical things like how cameras work and things like that because i've had i've done a lot of stuff on my own what was the most surprising thing about actually making your first feature what is it

what is something that you actually didn't know that you were like oh i didn't know it works this way well well one thing was that i thought you know the schedule is to schedule and if you blow that you're screwed like you know each day it, okay, we're shooting these scenes today. And I was like, well, if we're not shooting these scenes, then they're not going to end up in the movie. So I would stress out like crazy. And like when we had very little time left for a scene, it was like, well, let's just do it in one setup.

You know, let's just do it with no cuts. Just put up a camera and get it so we get it but then i realized that movie schedules are a bit flexible like if you don't get it one day you can sort of make up for it and do it another day or what i also realized that you can even ask the studio of like getting an extra day or two like it's not impossible because you know schedules and budgets in movies are guesswork. It's interesting. I feel like you're giving away trade secrets here.

You're not supposed to say that so that the studio can keep you in line. Right, right, right. Oh, yeah, you have to stick to the schedule. So what about jumping to your next feature, which is obviously bigger and part of an expanded universe? And I feel like that ties in a little bit to Shazam, too. Yeah, that was such a pleasant experience. Because by then, for Annabelle Creation, now I knew how a film set worked. And like I'd learned so much.

And now it was kind of the same thing on another horror movie. But we had, you know, almost three times the budget now. So there were new things like I hadn't shot on a set before where you actually build on a sound stage and build the sets because lights out was all on location um but overall that was super pleasant because it's just like all right i'm working with people i've worked with before i know how this works we have plenty of money to do what we want to do and that was yeah and then with shazam it was kind of like making your first movie again because it was such a new people or because it was a bigger

bigger a lot of the same people yeah which uh was great but to be able to you know go into it with people you know and and people who also stepped up in a way like, uh, costume designer, Leah, Leah Butler, who I worked with on Alba creation, you know, she'd never done a superhero movie before, like designing a super suit and doing all that, or, or production design, Jennifer spends.

And like, it felt like we all got to step up together. When you came under Shazam, was the script done? Did you know what the film was going to be in that way? Well, what happened was when they called me, you know, they've been wanting to make a Shazam movie for

quite a while. Do you know why that is? I'm interested in that because he's obviously, as you said, not one of the top five figures in that world. Well, I think why they wanted to make him is because it's the ultimate wish fulfillment. It's a kid who gets to become a superhero.

Every kid dreams about that and just the concept of it just opens up for so many possibilities because just the the big aspect of it a kid who gets to be an adult it's like oh it gives you all these ideas of course a kid would try this would try that but and you add superpowers to that it's just you know it's endless uh uh, possibilities. Um, so, I mean, I,

I absolutely understand why they wanted to do it, but when I came on board, they, you know, they called me up and they said, you know, we have this script that's basically Shazam versus Black Adam, which is his long time nemesis.

And I think they were finding that it was like, oh, too much for one movie that it was better to just let, let's give Shazam his proper, you know, the space that he needs to properly do this. And that's when they called me. So, you know, together with Henry Gaydon and everyone at the studio and the producer, we would sort of get together and talk about, you know, how do we change the script? We have to take out Black Adam and then we'll give more space to Savannah and the bad guys. So we'd get together every week, talk it through. Then Henry would go off, write pages, and we'd get together and have notes on those pages. And it was pretty cool. Very collaborative.

Are you the kind of person who watches a lot of films before starting something and starts to pull from different films that you've experienced in the past? Not, not that I watch a lot of films. It's more that, you know, I, I remember films very well.

Uh, I have quite a, a filmic memory, I guess, which my wife finds funny because whenever I know a song, she's like, all right, what movie was it in? Like, cause that's why I know songs. Oh yeah, that was in Magnolia. Yeah whenever I know a song, she's like, all right, what movie was it in?

Like, cause that's why I know songs. Oh yeah, that was in Magnolia. Yeah. So yeah, I, it all gets stored in here.

So it's not like I have to sit down and rewatch. And do you use that beforehand to talk to people working on the film? So talk to the screenwriter, say, Oh, I'm looking for X, Y, and Z.

And especially with the effects and things where it's like, Oh, basically that shot in terminator 2 when the t-1000 gets you know comes back together and rises up and there's a lot of reference to references to shots in other movies like yeah i wanted to explode like the buildings explode in war of the worlds the spielbergs you know when the the tripods shoot through the buildings yeah yeah a lot of that so that's that's that's a common move for you yeah but i mean that that's what i've had to learn over here in hollywood is how to communicate what you have in your head because back in sweden doing no budget films or doing animation stuff by myself i didn't have to do that because i was the one doing everything you know from the music to the visual effects and

the editing and then when you get here that has been the big thing for me to learn is how to communicate that to other people and you know a lot of times words isn't enough so you have to do you know little drawings little animations which you know it's come in handy that i know how to do those things and sometimes even you know on this movie i just shoot myself playing with action figures basically like oh yeah he flies in like this and he lands and like do little angles and then we'd like cut that together and give that to previous like oh this is what i want and then they do it in cg you know so we could is that is that a common strategy for superhero previs like rather than storyboard or something you'll just shoot action

figures like that's a fascinating thing it's common but it's like yeah whatever you need to do to quickly convey something because it's you know it takes so many iterations of you know if you just explain something you know you in your head like, oh, this is the clearest explanation ever because you see that and then you get it back and it's like, oh, yeah, of course, that's how they interpreted it. And you have to go again and then you have to go again and again and again until it gets closer to what you want. You know? Yeah, even like super tiny things. Like, yeah, I want a gray line down here and then one up here and then you get it back and there's several gray lines or like the thickness is not what you imagined.

And because there's a lot of things that in your head is just obvious. But they're so obvious in your head that you have problems with communicating them. I really admired the tone of the movie. And I think it's a bit different from the previous DC films. And there's obviously been a lot of conversation about that. I'm curious how much of that was set out early on to say, this has to be lighter.

It has to be meta at times. It has to be kind of emotionally light on its feet. Well, the great thing was that there was no mandate from the studio about anything. It was just like, let's make the best Shazam movie that we can. And Shazam, the character, just naturally lends himself to a lighter tone, a more fun tone, because it is, again, the wish fulfillment, and it's the kid.

A lot of superheroes, they get their powers when they're adults, and it's like they're weighed down by their responsibilities, and here you have an irresponsible kid getting it so uh the tone was just there in the material and then what i liked about it was that yeah there was no mandate to like oh we have to set up these things that are going to happen in the universe or you have to include these things or not include these things we were just focused on making a good shazam movie and then of course we could reference the universe as much as we wanted and put in little easter eggs and all these things because it is set in the dc universe is that a relief to you to not be bound to this sort of long continuity that you have to tell a story inside of yeah and then just the fact that

you know we got to cast everyone in this movie like it wasn't like oh you know this other director has already cast these people you know so it felt very much like okay we got to do our own thing it was the same thing with what i loved about animal creation that even though it is a sequel and it's part of the universe it was a prequel with all new characters and like a new story so it didn't feel like oh this is a puzzle piece and a bigger thing it just felt like this is this movie you couldn't recast annabelle though she was sad we had to go with her we did actually redesign her a little bit uh just because james actually felt that she was almost too obviously evil looking you know like the first design of it so we actually softened

her features a little bit about creation just to, because otherwise, because it was almost like, oh, why would a child even put that in the room,

you know? So we softened her features. What about Zachary Levi? Where did, how did you land on him? I think he was a surprising choice for a lot of people when they heard about it.

Yeah, yeah, he was a surprising choice for me as well because I actually didn't, I wasn't familiar with him. I'd never seen Chuck, which is probably a good thing because that meant I didn't have any preconceived notions. But, I mean, we just had a really long casting process and met with or got self-tapes from over 100 people.

But because, yes, casting is just so important. You know, you want to find these people who just embody these characters or who really get these characters because, you know, when you're on the set, you're going to run into so many issues that you don't want to worry about, like having to pull a performance out of someone because you have so much other problems to deal with. And Zack, you know, when I saw his audition tape,

right away, it was like, well, he's the guy. He was actually auditioning for a different character. But when I saw him, it was like, he's the guy. So I pitched him to the studio and they flew him out here. And I think what I loved about him was that he has this very childlike enthusiasm and excitement. And I think that made us realize as well that oh that's what it is to be a kid because a lot of actors you know if they're adults they dumb themselves down you know to play a kid well he's more about the excitement and the enthusiasm which is something

you kind of lose when you become an adult unfortunately um but yeah no it was quite a process before we found him and and we had this rule that if you want to be Shazam, you have to come in and audition because even though you have actors who have been in, you know, a hundred movies before, you've never seen them play a child. So that was something that we really wanted to see that you could do. That's really interesting. What about the rest of the cast? I mean, there's a lot of people that I had hadn't seen before. There's obviously a lot of kids. I imagine you had to span far and wide. Very much so. I mean, the two easiest ones to cast were Grace Fulton, who plays Mary, because I worked with her on Animal Creation. And then Jack Dylan Grazer was actually, you know, the studio new line. They were like, hey, we just shot this movie, It.

There's some great kids in that movie. Check it out and see if anyone is good for like Billy or Freddy or something like that. I saw Jack and he was just he was Freddy. He is this really smart fast-talking kid who just and he's hilarious. He's a really good

actor. He is, yes. hilarious he's a really good actor he is yes um and yeah no he and he's a good improviser as well like him and and and uh sack would just riff on things and change things up and which uh you know would crack me up so i i you know do take after take just to see what we'd get because you can really just – you don't know if you've gotten everything yet. So you basically keep going until you feel like, okay, they're probably not going to come up with anything more after this. That's an interesting thing. It's sort of like how loose can you be in a movie like this, which has a lot of VFX and this big sort of hierarchy of storytelling. So did you do that?

Did you improvise a lot on the set? Yeah, I mean, it's not like full-on improvisation. They're following the script, but they're adding their own flares and their own little jokes in there and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, for regular, you know, non-heavy VFX heavy scenes,

you know, we'd keep it loose and not sort of storyboard and, you know, just work it out on the the day which is the more fun way to do it because with all the the the big action you have to work it out so far in advance and you have to do this previous animation and you cut that together and you watch that over and over so by the time you know it comes to actually shoot it you're already tired of it because you know what it is. And it's just very technical to shoot as well because you only shoot these little tiny pieces at a time. Because like, all right, we're just shooting this piece today because this other piece is CGI.

This piece is on a blue screen stage. This little piece is a second unit shot. So it gets very split up, which is not fun for the actors as well. Because not only do they have to keep track of everything, but you get kind of lost. I know with Mark Strong, we started out shooting a lot of those things with him. And then we had a scene where he's talking to the wizard and has this big sort of speech to him. And it was like, oh, finally, like making us acting in a scene like a full thing. Is that the most challenging part about making a movie that is this big is just trying to maneuver all of those different pieces yeah

the time it takes and and um yeah all the visual effects it's like yeah the more spectacular it looks on screen the more boring it probably was to shoot because it just takes forever and it's just so much planning and you get kind of sick of it you know and and it's weird as well that you don't really see things the what they will actually look like until the movie's complete basically uh and and there were because it takes so long to finish these vfx so there were even some shots where it's like i cut them you know pretty because i was like i don't know if the vfx will actually get there in time and like if it doesn't then we're gonna have something that looks bad in

the movie so let's just play it safe and cut these little things you know what happens when you have a cut do you have to show it to the studio and also to sort of the dc creative council like what is that process like yeah i mean i've i have a tendency to show uh a cut very early to the studio because you know according to dga rules and everything you get 10 weeks to do a director's cut and during that time you can you know you don't have to let the studio in and see anything like it's all up to you who gets to see it but i have a tendency to show it pretty early like man about creation i showed it like four weeks and i think on this one was probably something similar four and a half five weeks or something like that just to get there just to see what their feedback is and their input partly

because you get kind of lost you know so you want to have someone outside come in and see and and and pick out the things that you're maybe missing because you're so lost in it um but also it's like if they're gonna have notes or something then let's deal with it early rather than like go all the way down a path and then find out like oh they they're not okay with that did you find that you had to maneuver a lot of things once you after you did that first assembly no not many i mean i have a very good relationship with everyone and it was cool that even um you know walter hamada who's been an executive at new line and i've worked with on all my movies during the making of this he became the head of dc so it's like it was all

people i knew and then we have a good real relationship, but so it wasn't anything hard really. You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that you like to make audience-friendly movies. So I'm wondering if you're now, the films that you're making are the ones that you thought you would be making if you ever had a chance to kind of do the Hollywood thing. Absolutely, yes. This is where you want to be. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I want to make movies that are a good time at the movies, you know. And it's so rewarding with horror movies and with this one, who's pretty much a comedy, you know.

There's a lot of horror in this, too, I did notice. You have some elements. You've got to have a little bit of everything, right? No, but it's just so rewarding to, like, sit in with an audience and hear their laughters or their screams or applause sometimes and it's yeah i i like making like popcorn movies you know what's your hope are you hoping to stay working in the dc universe so do you have other original films you want to do i want to do a little bit of everything i mean there are so many genres i want to explore as

well like i've always been a big science fiction fan. I'd love to do that. I want to do more horror as well. I'm not certainly not done with that. And, uh, yeah, I mean, we'll, we'll see what happens with the whole, um, I mean, the, the thing with a movie like this, it's just such a huge commitment, you know, it's like two years of, of, of your life with, you know, like with Annabelle and lights out, you know, you can do a movie like that every year. And, uh, with a superhero movie, you know, like with Annabelle and Lights Out, you know, you can do a movie

like that every year. And with a superhero movie, you can't. When did you sign on to Shazam? It was during post-production of Annabelle Creation, you know, studio was very happy with how it turned out and how it tested. And that's when they called me. And it was, it's kind of weird because it's it's not really that definitive moment of oh you're hired it's more like you start talking about it and like you start having

meetings and then those meetings get a little more and more sort of advanced uh and uh it's weird because even like things like green lights and things like that can happen pretty late. I remember on Lights Out, we were in our production office, sort of getting everything ready, and we still didn't have the official green light. And I was talking to someone there. I was like, we have the office and everything. I was like, aren't we green lit? And they were like, someone had worked on Water for Elephants or whatever like and they were like you know someone had worked on

water for elephants or whatever and they were saying that well we were basically shooting we had the big train we had everything before we got our green light so it's like yeah it's just a lot looser than you think you know that is the whole process that is fascinating um if you haven't seen shazam maybe turn off this podcast because i just want to ask a couple of questions about the future of the shazam movies that are related to what happens at the end. So, you know,

without saying too much, you do set up the possibility of basically a wider Shazam universe, specifically, and a lot of characters that maybe people wouldn't expect

at the end of the movie. Yeah. And I'm curious if you feel like a fealty that you need to be the person that tells that story if it goes forward because it sets up

the potential for a lot. Yeah, it does i mean yeah i mean we'll see how it develops really because it's yeah people are right away they're like oh do you want to do shazam 2 it's like maybe i don't know like it feels like i've been so focused on this and just getting this finished and getting it out there that it's kind of like, you know, you're asking someone who just ran a marathon. It's like, hey, do you want to run another marathon? It's like, just let me breathe for a second, you know. So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see what happens.

But yeah, there's certainly more you could do. Do you feel the weight of momentum at all, though, in your career where you say, like, I have to follow this up with something. I think this is the first time where I feel like, okay, I can actually take a breather because, you know, previously, you know, during post on a lights out,

I had already been attached to Annabelle creation. Cause it was like, oh yeah, let's go. And during post on Annabelle creation, I was already attached to this. Cause it's like, all right,

I'm in Hollywood. This is my chance. Let's not slow down. Um, but, but, but, and it it that's a little crazy because it like uh lights out uh came out while i was shooting annabelle creation so i had we like one day of shooting we just had to uh quit a little earlier so i could go to the premiere here in Hollywood which is like such a Hollywood life

it's like yeah let's wrap a little early I have to go to the premiere of my other movie no but it's finally like after this it feels like

I think I need to just take a moment so this is the first time where I have a movie coming out and I'm not already working on the next movie so yeah

I want to just take it a little easy, see family. Have you got a vacation planned? What are you going to do? I just want to hang around at home. Okay. You know, I haven't been home in quite a while. What's your relationship to sort of the Swedish film community at this stage? Because you really, like you said, you catapulted into Hollywood.

There isn't one. Yes, because, I mean, we didn't, you know, you catapulted into Hollywood. There isn't one, yes. Because, I mean, we didn't, you know, Lothar and I, we never made a professional movie in Sweden. We never got into that community. And I think maybe a lot of people in Sweden don't even realize that I am Swedish. And it's weird because we've even heard of, someone was telling me about that there's this community of like Hollywood Swedes. Because there are a lot of like Swedish actors like Alicia Vikander and Joel Kinnaman and Alexander Skarsgård and, you know, all these people.

And apparently they have get togethers that I've heard about. Oh, wow. Swedes in Hollywood. But we've never been invited. But I think it is that thing because. You weren't in though. They all. Yeah, of course. But I think it is all that thing of like,

they all came here sort of the same path through Swedish movies and then got here. While, you know, Lotta and I, we just suddenly found ourselves here and have no connection to the Swedish film industry. It was actually funny because I was asking, I met Fetty Alvarez a little while ago, you know, who directed the girl in the Spider's Web. And I was asking him like, whatetty Alvarez a little while ago, you know, who directed Girl and the Spider's Web. And I was asking him, like, what's it like shooting in Sweden?

Because I'm from Sweden, but I've never shot there, you know. That's so fascinating. David, I end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. I don't know if you've had time to see many movies lately, but what is the last great thing you've seen? I saw Dragged Across Concrete. Yes. It's been a topic of much conversation in our office lately. Oh, it has?

Yeah. What do you think? It was very long and slow, but I really liked it. And it was so brutal. I have a tendency of showing Lotte really horrible things. I'll show her like, hey, check this out. And it's from a horror movie I've seen. And she's like, oh, why are you showing me that?

And for this one, I was like, hey, remember Jennifer Carpenter, you know, from like Dexter? You have to check out her part in this movie. And I showed her that. And it's just so depressing and brutal. But yeah, no, I like that movie. That's a great one. David, thank you for doing this. Thank you.

Thanks again to my guests, David Sandberg and The Ringer's Miles Suri. Please tune into The Big Picture later this week. We'll have two more episodes. One will feature a conversation with one of my favorite filmmakers, Alex Ross-Perry, and the star of his new film, Her Smell, the wonderful actress, Elizabeth Moss. And then we'll be continuing our Marvel Month series. I'll be speaking with David Shoemaker about one of my favorite Marvel movies, and I know one of his, Guardians of the Galaxy. And if you haven't heard the first two installments of that series, please check them out. Amanda Dobbins and I talked about Captain America, the first Avenger. And then Chris Ryan and I talked

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