Shazam 2 Wonder Woman Cameo Explained In Detail By Director

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Shazam! Fury of the Gods.​

The director of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, David F. Sandberg, explains in detail the movie’s Wonder Woman cameo. 2019’s Shazam! included a headless cameo of Superman after the movie failed to film scenes with Man of Steel actor Henry Cavill. Now, Shazam! Fury of the Gods pokes fun at the first movie’s DC cameo while also managing to secure the return of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

Speaking with Collider, Sandberg explained in detail how Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ Wonder Woman cameo came to be.

According to the director, Shazam! Fury of the Gods went through the same process with Wonder Woman that the first movie had gone through with Superman. While the Shazam 2 trailers spoiled Wonder Woman’s cameo with Gadot, nobody was expecting Diana to have such an integral role in the movie in such short time, with the heroine reviving Shazam himself. Sandberg was nervous that the important planned Gadot cameo would fall through and had a backup plan in place. Check out the full quote below:

I mean, the funny thing was, in the first movie we were gonna have Henry [Cavill] show up as Superman. Then, when we were shooting that scene, they were like, “Well, Henry is not gonna make it on this day, so we’ll shoot it with a stand-in and then we’ll have to pick up his coverage later on.” It’s like, “Okay…” So, we shot it like that, and then the Henry thing fell apart and we couldn’t do it. So we had to just use the stand-in footage, and that’s why it ends before you see his face.

So for this one, Wonder Woman was in the script and I was like, “It’s not really gonna happen.” I mean, it makes sense because of the mythology and the Greek gods and everything, but it’s like, “I don’t believe it’s gonna happen.” And then, when we were shooting that scene, or the majority of it, it was the same thing, like, “Oh, you’re gonna have to shoot with a stand-in and then we’ll pick her pieces up because she’s not gonna make it here to Atlanta at this time.” (…) Can we have [Helen Mirren’s] character actually survive? It’s gonna be so lame if she shows up.” But that was sort of my Plan B.

But then it actually happened and we were actually able to shoot with her, which made me very happy.

Why Wonder Woman’s Shazam 2 Cameo Was Better Than Superman’s

Superman’s cameo in Shazam! was sweet enough, with the hero showing up to have lunch with Freddy and Shazam at their school’s cafeteria, paying off a plot point from the movie. On paper, it was a scene that is inherently Superman, portraying him perhaps closer to the comic books than any of the old DC canon movies did with Cavill. However, the problem with that scene stemmed from the lack of showing the hero’s head, as Cavill did not shoot scenes for Shazam!

Shazam! Fury of the Gods handles Wonder Woman better by giving the character two scenes in the movie, the first of which is a direct nod to the original’s headless Superman scene. Early on in the film, Billy Batson dreams that he is on a date with Wonder Woman, whose face is not shown, only for the Wizard to astral project himself onto Wonder Woman’s body to talk to the kid. Hilarity ensues, and while the sequel had one of the worst DCEU opening weekends, it became clear that the movie knew exactly how to handle its wider connections to the DC Universe.

While the first Wonder Woman scene poking fun at Shazam!‘s headless Superman was entertaining, it was the second appearance of the character — a full-on moment with star Gadot — that cemented her contribution to the movie being more important than Superman in the original. The first headless Wonder Woman scene was paid off when Gadot herself appeared as the character by the end of the movie, using her godly powers to restore the magic to the Wizard’s staff and resurrect a recently deceased Billy Batson. Even if Shazam! Fury of the Gods split critics/ audiences over the movie, the notion that the film handled Wonder Woman correctly is undisputed.

Source: Tamera Jones/Collider