Shazam! Captain Marvel gets a director

[InkSlinger]

Who's the guy in the CM outfit?

This is getting silly.
Drop the Sandler idea. The movie would be a bomb that wouldn't even make it to straight-to-DVD release.
That looks like a fanboy at a comic convention standing behind a lifesize cardboard cutout of Alex Ross's Captain Marvel poster.
(Get'ur picture taken here! Look just like yer favrit superhero!)
Nice pic, but still silly.
I'd rather see The Rock before I'd even think of Sandler. (Holy Moly!)

 

[Kirk Langstrom (2)]

Who's the guy in the CM outfit?

It's Brandon Molale (Mr. Deeds, Benchwarmers, The Longest Yard):

http://www.brandonmolale.com/

I think he'd be perfect!... 6'5'', and he's a Stryper fan!!

 

[InkSlinger]

Looks good to me.
And he's got police attitude, too.

 

[celldog]

It's Brandon Molale (Mr. Deeds, Benchwarmers, The Longest Yard):

http://www.brandonmolale.com/

I think he'd be perfect!... 6'5'', and he's a Stryper fan!!

THIS GUY IS PERFECT!! LOOK NO FURTHER!!

 

[celldog]

LET'S FACE IT. Cap's world is kinda silly.

A talking Tiger??

A Worm that talks??

Uncle Marvel??
Dr. Sivana.....short with big floppy ears always yelling "I'll get that Big Red Cheese!"


So I would be surprised if they made it a comedy. I think that would be a shame. But I would be surprised.

 

[InkSlinger]

LET'S FACE IT. Cap's world is kinda silly.

A talking Tiger??

A Worm that talks??

Uncle Marvel??
Dr. Sivana.....short with big floppy ears always yelling "I'll get that Big Red Cheese!"


So I would be surprised if they made it a comedy. I think that would be a shame. But I would be surprised.

It wouldn't be so silly if it was actually a fantasy reality conjured up by an injured kid in a hospital. For instance, what if Billy Batson had a head injury he got after being hit by a truck that swiped him when he tried to save a dog in the street from that same truck? When the paramedics get him to the hospital, the doctor who treats him (Morgan Freeman) knows he'll need time to recover, but needs someone to be there talking to him to help 'bring him back'.
Billy's father, a widower, is a captain with the fire department, and arrives at the hospital after Billy is stabilized and learns from the doctor that he'll need someone to stay with him and talk to him as his concussed brain tries to recover. Billy's father, worried about losing his son, says he'll stay as long as he needs to. The doctor, knowing that some people run out of things to talk about pretty quick, gives Billy's father a box of comics to read to Billy, saying they were left over from an orphanage that used to be in the same building the hospital is in. It had been closed shortly before the hospital moved in. Wanna guess which comic books are in the box?
Surprise! They are Whiz Comics, #1 - 50, tattered and torn, but still readable. (Still powerful imagination magic.)
To make this short, Billy's father reads these to his son, who imagines he is the hero in the comic, a hero just like his father. The wizard Shazam is the doctor (Morgan Freeman). Needless to say, after several adventures related to the comic stories, Billy eventually recovers shouting SHAZAM! just as he wakes up. Happy ending, and any silly stuff is part of a kids imagined reality. (He saved the dog, by the way.)
I've seen $200+ million spent on a worse storyline, and I kinda like my plot.
A talking Tiger?- Try the Kntzee from Enterprise, which came from a Larry Niven novel.
Talking worm- try the Goa'uld from StarGate SG-1.
Mad Scientist-try Lex Luthor vowing to get that big Blue Boyscout.
It should be a comedy, but mostly, it should be serious. About hope, trust and ultimately love (between a father and his son)-the true power of Shazam!
(Gosh, I'm so misty, I'll have to leave.)

 

[terry78]

I don't think too many will appreciate them pulling a St. Elsewhere with this movie.

 

[InkSlinger]

It wouldn't be a St. Elsewhere, although I can see why you would think that way.
Unlike the TV show, this would be upfront.
St. Elsewhere lied to everyone. After 5 years, they end it with a very lame episode that came out of nowhere and was totally unbelievable. (I think it was 5-)
The movie could open with a young kid being brought into the emergency room and all the related stuff and fade into Billy walking into the old subway station and going through the Captain Marvel process with the wizard, and then going back to the hospital room with the doctor and the boys father. After about 1/2 an hour into the film, it becomes apparent that the boy in the hospital is Billy and the story is about his survival. His becoming Captain Marvel is part of that process. The kicker would be that by the end of the movie, he could really be able to become Captain Marvel.
There will always be a need for heroes, and Billy should be able to become the Captain when he's really needed. You would need a really good writing team, which I understand they have. It just needs to be worked out. Even his sister Mary could become Mary Marvel in this if he needed her help.
Could work. Then again, there may be too many of us cynical bastard-types to let something like this actually happen.

 

[Captain Kirk]

Just imagine if Donner could get his hands on this character. Captain Marvel has the potential to be a huge film. He could even recruit Williams to score the film. The appeal of the character could work to the same formula as spider-man. A young kid coming to grips with enormous power, and the uncertainty of what to do with. I hope the movie is given the respect that Cap deserves!

 

[celldog]

It wouldn't be so silly if it was actually a fantasy reality conjured up by an injured kid in a hospital. For instance, what if Billy Batson had a head injury he got after being hit by a truck that swiped him when he tried to save a dog in the street from that same truck? When the paramedics get him to the hospital, the doctor who treats him (Morgan Freeman) knows he'll need time to recover, but needs someone to be there talking to him to help 'bring him back'.
Billy's father, a widower, is a captain with the fire department, and arrives at the hospital after Billy is stabilized and learns from the doctor that he'll need someone to stay with him and talk to him as his concussed brain tries to recover. Billy's father, worried about losing his son, says he'll stay as long as he needs to. The doctor, knowing that some people run out of things to talk about pretty quick, gives Billy's father a box of comics to read to Billy, saying they were left over from an orphanage that used to be in the same building the hospital is in. It had been closed shortly before the hospital moved in. Wanna guess which comic books are in the box?
Surprise! They are Whiz Comics, #1 - 50, tattered and torn, but still readable. (Still powerful imagination magic.)
To make this short,


TOO LATE FOR THAT.


Billy's father reads these to his son, who imagines he is the hero in the comic, a hero just like his father. The wizard Shazam is the doctor (Morgan Freeman). Needless to say, after several adventures related to the comic stories, Billy eventually recovers shouting SHAZAM! just as he wakes up. Happy ending, and any silly stuff is part of a kids imagined reality. (He saved the dog, by the way.)
I've seen $200+ million spent on a worse storyline, and I kinda like my plot.
A talking Tiger?- Try the Kntzee from Enterprise, which came from a Larry Niven novel.
Talking worm- try the Goa'uld from StarGate SG-1.
Mad Scientist-try Lex Luthor vowing to get that big Blue Boyscout.
It should be a comedy, but mostly, it should be serious. About hope, trust and ultimately love (between a father and his son)-the true power of Shazam!
(Gosh, I'm so misty, I'll have to leave.)

That too much change from the mythos. The Hulk made that same mistake. I just say leave out the worm and the tawky tiger.

 

[InkSlinger]

That too much change from the mythos. The Hulk made that same mistake. I just say leave out the worm and the tawky tiger.

(I have noticed a tendancy to oversell when I get excited about a project.)
The Hulk screwed up when they made Banner a real wuss and brought in a father no-one had ever heard of. A crazy one at that. Plus a badly rendered CGI Hulk made it worse. They should have asked Jackson and his WETA Team do it (Kong).
I agree- the talking tiger and the worm need to be set aside. They were, from what I remember, products of the same Comics Code Authority crap the made the Batman a squeaky clean mentor to Robin, the wisecracking orphan. Notice the pattern?
Batman worked best when he was brought back to his darker roots and made into an adult character without the Boy Wonder.
As to the change from the mythos, we may have to see a slight rewrite to bring this up to date for our time. I don't know of any orphan teenager that is self sufficiant with a job as a radio announcer or any of the other stuff the original stories had Billy Batson doing. Social Services anywhere probably wouldn't allow it. (And where exactly did he live? In his own flophouse apartment? Maybe a 20 year old could do that today, but no teenager that I know of.) That's probably why the old serial worked so well. It deviated from the mythos somewhat, yet was true to the basic part of the origin tale. It was enjoyable and serious enough to keep our attention for 12 wonderful episodes. And has continued doing so for 57 years.
It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

[celldog]

(I have noticed a tendancy to oversell when I get excited about a project.)
The Hulk screwed up when they made Banner a real wuss and brought in a father no-one had ever heard of. A crazy one at that. Plus a badly rendered CGI Hulk made it worse. They should have asked Jackson and his WETA Team do it (Kong).


They messed up by going away from the Gamma Bomb blast! The action would have started from the word "GO". That's his origin!! No need to change that! But that's what you get when you Ang "Brokeback" Lee, a non-comic book guy, take hold of this character! He didn't respect the roots
As for the CGI...it was great!! EFX were stunning. Geez.....how else was a 7 foot green power house suppose to look???






I agree- the talking tiger and the worm need to be set aside. They were, from what I remember, products of the same Comics Code Authority crap the made the Batman a squeaky clean mentor to Robin, the wisecracking orphan. Notice the pattern?
Batman worked best when he was brought back to his darker roots and made into an adult character without the Boy Wonder.
As to the change from the mythos, we may have to see a slight rewrite to bring this up to date for our time. I don't know of any orphan teenager that is self sufficiant with a job as a radio announcer or any of the other stuff the original stories had Billy Batson doing.


So true!




Social Services anywhere probably wouldn't allow it. (And where exactly did he live? In his own flophouse apartment? Maybe a 20 year old could do that today, but no teenager that I know of.) That's probably why the old serial worked so well. It deviated from the mythos somewhat, yet was true to the basic part of the origin tale. It was enjoyable and serious enough to keep our attention for 12 wonderful episodes. And has continued doing so for 57 years.
It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

I have that serial. Me and my daughter watch it a lot!! Tom Tyler did that "Talk or I'll....." thing all the time!! Not a lot of lines!

 

[Kurosawa]

That too much change from the mythos. The Hulk made that same mistake. I just say leave out the worm and the tawky tiger.

I say bring on the worm and the tiger and just enjoy that it's a kids fantasy movie.

And the worm was the main villian of the ultimate Captain Marvel epic. There were no post-code Fawcett Captain Marvel comics; DC forced them to stop doing comics in 1953.

The worm and the tiger, Cap getting into an arguement and a battle with the world...they were all because Captain Marvel was just a crazy, wild fairy tale type of comic. it NEVER took itself seriously. The serious Golden Age Marvel Family stories were found in Captain Marvel Jr comics.

 

[celldog]

I say bring on the worm and the tiger and just enjoy that it's a kids fantasy movie.

And the worm was the main villian of the ultimate Captain Marvel epic. There were no post-code Fawcett Captain Marvel comics; DC forced them to stop doing comics in 1953.

The worm and the tiger, Cap getting into an arguement and a battle with the world...they were all because Captain Marvel was just a crazy, wild fairy tale type of comic. it NEVER took itself seriously. The serious Golden Age Marvel Family stories were found in Captain Marvel Jr comics.

Then he gets no respect from here on.......is that what you want??

 

[InkSlinger]

I still think my original idea of Billy's Adventures as Captain Marvel being a result of recovering from an accident-induced coma may still work and keep everyone happy. Use the Sky Captain movie technique for the adventures and mix in the real life stuff as the hospital scenes where his father is reading the comics to him. If Dr Sivanna is the crazy scientist who discovered a portal to another dimension, which is where the "Goa'uld Worm" came from, then we have a start. That's not so silly now that we've had years of Stargate SG-1 using it. The talking tabby would have to come from the same kind of dimensional portal, although if it's just the Captain against the evil-possessed Dr. it will work better. The first Batman movie worked well because it was just the Bats against the Joker. The sequels had so many badguys coming out of the woodwork that the movies sagged under their own weight and sucked as a result, although I thought #2 was pretty well done (I thought the armor-looking Batsuit was the best).
This gives you an opportunity to suspend disbelief and accept a lot of the characters that would show up.
I had another choice for the Wizard, Shazam, that I think would make people take this more seriously- Omar Sharif. If you ever saw him in the movie Msr. Ibraham, you know what I'm thinking of. He was a treasure to watch and he did a great job making you believe he adopted a kid because he wanted to make his life better. Nothing else to it. Can you see him as the Doctor who treats him in the hospital? His conversations with Billy and his father would always have that twinkle in his eye that made you wonder if what he was talking about was the real thing, or just a figment of Billy's imagination. That's the twist- at the end of the movie, you get the feeling that the Adventures of Captain Marvel were real, and the unspoken joke is the conversation that the Dr./Wizard has with Billy when he is alone in his hospital room and tells him even though the Captain is basically indestructable, Billy isn't (and that he's proud of him for saving the life of the dog that got him in the hospital in the first case).
Why should the Wizard be stuck in a damned cave or forgotten subway tunnel?
He should be one of those characters that shows up in different scenes as different kinds of people to keep an eye on Billy. After all, he's responsible for giving the power of 6 powerful gods to a teenager. He should be around every corner. He can also be the comic relief. He's old as the hills. I think a great sense of humor would be an absolute neccessity to surviving without going mad.
Either that, or give this project to PIXAR and let them do an INCREDIBLES to it.

(And yes, they screwed up big time by not using the Gamma Bomb Blast.
I just wish the Hulk CGI hadn't looked so much like something that had been cut and pasted in from a video game.)

 

[Kurosawa]

Then he gets no respect from here on.......is that what you want??

Why not? Does EVERYTHING have to "dark" and 'gritty"? Captain Marvel was created to be a whimsical fairy tale style of comic.

Sky High and the Incredibles. That's what a good Shazam movie should be like.

 

[Ben Breeck]

I don't really need a "Grim and Gritty" Captain Marvel, (Or at least, no more grim and gritty than Tom DeFalco/John Romita Jr. era Spider-Man) but still, "It was all just a dream," would be the most cynical betrayal I have ever seen in a Superhero movie, something worse than what happened to Man-Thing (Derivative Character to be sure, but even he [it?] didn't deserve the treatment he got) or Captain America in 1978.

Unfortunately, my ideas for Captain Marvel are rather vague right now. They involve some exploration of the Batson home life (They aren't all that well off, and since Mr. Batson's death (In Desert Storm, or now Somalia, yeah, I know that will date the movie, but I want it set as much in the present as it can) Mrs. Batson has remarried, to a living personification of Wade Hayes's songs, who spends much more time and money in local bars than on his stepfamily. The Batsons don't have even dialup internet access, and even the stepdad doesn't have a cell phone.

Billy himself is somewhat of a dreamer. Not a nerd, (he's not really that smart) he spends his time in the library, reading fantasy books. (His personal favorites are Robert Jordan, Raymond Feist, L. E. Modessitt, Elizabeth Haydon, Christopher Stasheff, and some real obscure fellows like George Bellaires and Lord Dunsany). Then one day, he is walking home on the street, when he sees some street toughs beating up on an old man for not paying protection, and he sees how an old piece of rope could trip up their brutal endeavor...

 

[InkSlinger]

I don't really need a "Grim and Gritty" Captain Marvel, (Or at least, no more grim and gritty than Tom DeFalco/John Romita Jr. era Spider-Man) but still, "It was all just a dream," would be the most cynical betrayal I have ever seen in a Superhero movie, something worse than what happened to Man-Thing (Derivative Character to be sure, but even he [it?] didn't deserve the treatment he got) or Captain America in 1978.

(I liked the Salinger Captain America. It has been the only attempt that tried to keep to the original mythos. -InkSlinger)

Unfortunately, my ideas for Captain Marvel are rather vague right now. They involve some exploration of the Batson home life (They aren't all that well off, and since Mr. Batson's death (In Desert Storm, or now Somalia, yeah, I know that will date the movie, but I want it set as much in the present as it can) Mrs. Batson has remarried, to a living personification of Wade Hayes's songs, who spends much more time and money in local bars than on his stepfamily. The Batsons don't have even dialup internet access, and even the stepdad doesn't have a cell phone.

Billy himself is somewhat of a dreamer. Not a nerd, (he's not really that smart) he spends his time in the library, reading fantasy books. (His personal favorites are Robert Jordan, Raymond Feist, L. E. Modessitt, Elizabeth Haydon, Christopher Stasheff, and some real obscure fellows like George Bellaires and Lord Dunsany). Then one day, he is walking home on the street, when he sees some street toughs beating up on an old man for not paying protection, and he sees how an old piece of rope could trip up their brutal endeavor...

(Too much pathos (do you live in New York or Chicago?), but I really like the idea of the mugging. Works well as a way for the wizard to get Billy's attention without being arrested for child-molesting.)

We're not talking about 'grim and gritty'-that's best left to the Batman franchise.
We want this movie and the Captain to be treated serioiusly, not stupidly.
And I never said it was "just a dream". That would be a crap-out.
(And I did say I was a cynical bastard, didn't I?)
The idea was that the in the end, the twist would be that the Adventures actually happened. Billy was replaying during his recovery, in Sky Captain-style flashback, the Adventures that had been immortalized in comics. (Just like Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hitchcock had been in newspaper stories back around the 1900's.)
Billy doesn't need the broken home crap. He wouldn't be a dreamer, he'd be trying too hard to get away from that kind of life. Alex Ross came at that from a different angle in his Shazam! Power of Hope graphic novel. (Very well too, IMA.)
Your fantasy list is too obscure. He'd actuallly be reading guys like Asimov, Norton, Niven, Piers Anthony, Clarke, Donaldson, de Camp and most importantly Kenneth (Lester Dent) Robeson's Doc Savage. The Bama covers for these books are great as a source for a perfectly muscular 'super-man'.
He needs to have a father who he looks up to, who is a firefighter or a policeman, an everyday hero. If his mother died, he'd need him even more.
And he would be "that smart". One thing that was always up front was the fact that this kid was very smart, trusting without being naive, and very resourceful. A regular Boy Scout.
Today's kids (a lot of them) are computer whizzes, and have no problems with most kinds of technology, so he wouldn't be a dreamer, he'd be a pretty good blogger in place of the radio personality he was in the late '40's. Swap out one tech for another.
I haven't had the chance to see Sky High, but I understand that would be a great approach for this.

 

[GNR]

The comedy route is the only way I could see this happening.It would be really tough to pull off a serious flick with Shazam.

 

[terry78]

After seeing the new Supes trailer, having this be somewhat humorous would be the only thing to differentiate it from Superman.

 

[Ben Breeck]

Well, there is the fact that Billy Batson (until he grows up) is still a kid.

Let's face it. With the exception of angst in his origin, Billy Batson Captain Marvel has the most writeable qualities of both Superman and Spiderman.

I'm not opposed to giving him a certain sense of humor (I'm toying in my script with making him a fan of Mork and Mindy), but he needs to have a certain level of seriousness, a certain level of reality to him. He still has homework to do. He still has to deal with bullies, with cliques, with peer pressure. He sees injustice in the world and speaks out about it, but nobody listens to him because he's just a kid. Imagine having to save the world, or at least your local neighborhood when you still have to get the clothes washed the laundromat. And your only two friends are your big sister and that old owner of that used bookstore you saved from a protection shakedown. But the crew now knows you, and they know where you live an with whom...

 

[Bishop2]

After seeing the new Supes trailer, having this be somewhat humorous would be the only thing to differentiate it from Superman.

I would have to disagree. Especially after seeing how Kevin Spacey is playing Luthor.

 

[Spider - Man]

I'm really excited about this film being made!!

 

[InkSlinger]

This movie is going to suck sooooooooooo bad. Which is a real shame cause I really like Captain Marvel. It has a huge amount of potential, especially when you add in all the different mythologies, like egyptian with Black Adam.

UNFORTUNATELY...After looking at this director's resume it reminds me of another comedy director named Tim Story who got a big break directing another beloved Comic book...Fantastic Four. I think we all remember how well that flim turned out. Hollow script, lack luster acting (not from everyone just 3/5 the cast.), simply...another forgettable piece of trash. If the human torch effects weren't so nice, I'd have nothing nice to say about the film other than a stellar job of acting on Chiklis and Evans.
In short...Comedy directors...shouldn't direct big budget comic book action movies that are totally out of their expertise. Especially the sort who many, many people invest a lot of emotion on. But I digress...MAYBE this comedy dude will completely blow me away by picking an amazing script, talented actors, and having top-notch special effects, and getting the costume right...then again, there's SO, SO, stuff to ****Up it isn't even funny, not to mention it hasn't happened yet.

Personally...I dont want this dude getting his action movie "practice" with my Shazam! Would you let a surgical intern fresh outta med school remove your heart...or would you want the senior surgeon fixing your ticker? Exactly. Something like this deserves someone familiar with the subject matter. Sandy Collara did a helluva job with batman and he's a DIE HARD Shazam fan..he would have been perfect. Unfortunaly we're going to get another lousy piece of cinema crap.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0781842/ The director. Lame.

EXACTLY!
I wish they would reconsider and give Sandy Collura the chance.
This movie would be awesome with his talent.
He's not exactly an intern, and his vision and approach would insure this movie would be made with the respect to the fans AND the mythology.

 

[Dr. Mid-Nite]

Collura would own, no doubt about that.