Summary
- Shazam! Fury of the Gods received negative reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office, raising questions about the future of the franchise.
- Despite the criticism, Zachary Levi believes the movie is a good film and hopes that people will appreciate it outside of the initial negative buzz.
- The low Rotten Tomatoes score can be attributed to the movie’s continuation of the original’s silly nature without offering much new, as critics saw it as a step backward for the franchise. However, the audience score indicates that those who watched it enjoyed the film.
Zachary Levi breaks silence on Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ negative reviews after the movie flopped at the box office with only $133 million over its entire run. Shazam! Fury of the Gods proved 2023’s box office problems, with the DC movie being one of the first of the year to severely underperform, not even reaching the original Shazam!‘s $367 million. Beyond its box office issues, the movie also got many negative reviews from critics.
Speaking on The FilmUp Podcast, Levi addressed Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ negative critic reviews.
The actor notes that he does not know if he will have a future as Shazam in the new DC Universe due to Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ poor reception. While Levi makes it clear that he does not think the Shazam! sequel is a perfect film, the star claims it is still “a good darn movie.” He ends on a hopeful note, saying that in the future, people will watch the movie outside the negative bubble around its release and will say, “‘Well, wait a minute.’”
I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received. The audience score is still quite good, but the critics’ score was very oddly and perplexingly low, and people were insanely unkind.
I’ve been a part of things, and as much as I wish they were good, I know they’re okay. I know that they miss a lot. And I’m not saying ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ is some perfect, Orson Welles-like masterpiece, but it’s a good darn movie.
I have no idea where we go from here. I just hope that or believe that history will show… it will be one of those things that people will go back, people will watch ‘Fury of the Gods’ on home streaming or on a plane or whatever, and it will be this movie that they heard so much shit about, and then they will be like, ‘Well, wait a minute.’
Why Shazam 2’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Is So Low
Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes delivered a major blow to the movie with the Shazam! sequel’s measly 49 percent score hurting the film’s chances at the box office. In comparison, the sequel took quite the dive from the original’s critics’ score, as Shazam! boasts an impressive 90 percent on the review aggregator platform.
There are a few reasons that explain why the movie might have had such a low Rotten Tomatoes score with critics. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is one of the final movies in the DCEU, with the franchise soon being rebooted in favor of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe, making interest in the movie diminish. Besides, the film continues the silly nature of the original but does little else to set itself apart, being seen by most critics as a messy step backward.
That becomes clear in the website’s Critics Consensus, which states, “More unfocused and less satisfying than its predecessor, Shazam! Fury of the Gods still retains almost enough of the source material’s silly charm to save the day.” While the movie’s critics’ score was very negative, the same is not true for its audience score. Shazam! Fury of the Gods boasts an 86 percent audience score, a little over Shazam!‘s 82 percent score. That shows that those who did watch the movie enjoyed it, but sadly, not many went to theaters to see Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Source: The FilmUp Podcast
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