In 'Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” the titular superhero faces even more super-villains.
Zachary Levi returns as the superhero version of foster teen Billy Batson and he explained why, despite the peril Shazam faces, it is the prospect of losing Billy's family that scares his character the most.
"The first movie you find Billy's 14. He's been kicking around the foster system a long time. Very jaded. Doesn't feel like he's really gonna find a family that cares about him truly or that he can fit into. And then in the first movie, he realizes he can. He does find that family. So in this movie, now, they're three years on, and he shared his powers with the siblings and trying to keep everybody together because underneath all that, he's about to become 18 and aged out of the foster system and very concerned that he might lose this family that he waited so long to find," Levi noted.
"That's terrifying. I mean, we're not built to be these lone wolves. Human beings are meant to be tribal. And the good tribal, not the bad tribal, we're afraid of other tribes. But where we recognize that we all need each other, because we do."
In playing a superhero who has very human emotions and vulnerabilities, the actor said he found several things in common with his character including the desire to be of service to others, and to be better.
"I feel like ever since I was a little kid, I was like, God made me to be someone who loves people and wants to bring joy to the world genuinely. Not that I don't fail at that plenty in my life. But I think that definitely one of my stronger points is trying to do that. I guess I’d just like to continue to get even stronger in that. Maybe also just getting more disciplined. Sometimes I find that I get so distracted with all the little distractions of life. Because there's so many distractions now. I want to be able to just be more disciplined in that and be like, 'You know what, no. I'm not going to pick up my phone right now because I'm gonna go do this task, whatever the task is'."
Apart from its original cast, the sequel to the 2019 film Shazam also features Helen Mirren, Rachel Zegler, and Lucy Liu.