Captain Marvel is one of my favorite characters. I really hope that DC can bring him to the big screen and do it justice. My concern thought is with Dc wanting the character himself to go by the name "Shazam". I can see where they are coming form, but honestly it provides a few hurdles. The first and most obvious being that Shazam is the wizard's name. Now, you could simply portray it as though the wizard doesn't have a name, and that Shazam is simply the word that the wizard has looked for someone to pass it down to so they can use it wisely, and our hero uses to transform, and he decides to just use it as his name. But this leads to our second hurdle. How the public comes to know him as Shazam. Obviously it's far to coincidental for the public to dub him "Shazam" the same way Lois dubs Clark "Superman". So you would think at one point after he makes a save early on in the film, whoever he saved or a reporter on scene, or even a bad guy trembling in fear beneath him is going to ask the inevietable question: "Who are you?" And if DC mandates that Captain Marvel henceforth be referred to as Shazam himself, then that's the one question Billy can never answer, because as soon as he tries *BOOM* he's 12 again. Now, we could get creative and play it up as an aspect of Billy's humility that he doesn't want to be named, and only wants to be known as
"a friend" to the good and "your worst nightmare" to the bad guys, but it's iffy on how cheesy that could come off. Plus, even if it does work in one film, eventually, you're going to want the public to be able to call the character by his name, whether they're yelling "HI SHAZAM!" as he flies by, or if they're screaming "SHAZAM, HELP!!!"
Maybe a way around this could come in the form of a friend or ally that Billy shares his secret with early on, so when he makes that first public rescue, a reporter asks him a couple questions and he eats up the spot light, then flies off, then the reporter says "Crap, I didn't even ask what his name was!" and his friend is just staying there still awestruck by seeing what his best friend is capable of and tells her "Shazam". The reporter says "what was that kid" and the friend replies "His name is Shazam... and he's my friend... he's a friend to all of us."
Hokey maybe, but something along those lines? What are your guys' thoughts?