Tuesday
06Jan
Writer John August Says 'Shazam!' is Dead
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 2:53AM
If you're wondering what's up with Shazam!, please take a seat in the John August section. August, the screenwriter of Big Fish, Corpse Bride, and the Charlie's Angels movies, among others, was hired about two years ago to write an adaptation of the Captain Marvel comic book, also known as Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam, keeping much of its tradition in tact. Or at least that's how it was being reported, more or less.
"I was under contract to deliver one more draft. So I took them at their (written) word and delivered what they said they wanted: a much harder movie, with a lot more Black Adam. This wasn’t “Big, with super powers” anymore. It was Black Adam versus Captain Marvel, with a considerable push into dark territory and liminal badlands like Nanda Parbat. It wasn’t the action-comedy I’d signed on to write, but it was a movie I could envision getting made. The producer and director liked it, and turned it in to the studio while I was in France.By the time I got back, the project was dead. By 'dead,' I mean that it won’t be happening. I don’t think it’s on the studio’s radar at all. It may come back in another incarnation, with another writer, but I can say with considerable certainty that it won’t be the version I developed." August goes on to say that maybe he wrote "shitty scripts" but cites that he's previously had good experiences with Warner Bros., the studio that owns the rights to the film, and the one who, according to the writer, was pulling the film down a darker road a la the Nolan Batman movies. He concludes his version of the events by announcing he's already hard at work on something else, also to be housed at Warner Bros. "The first half of 2009 is going to be very busy. So while I’ll miss Shazam, and the movie it could have been, I won’t feel too bad if this is the last post I ever write about it." You have to wonder where this one went. The studio has a good relationship with the director, Peter Segal, knows it had a star attached (The Rock was lined up to play Black Adam), and Warner Bros. is coming off its best year ever, a year fueled by a comic book movie. It's certainly a curious move, if indeed the movie really has been beached.
Reader Comments