The first Shazam! movie burned through some seemingly big plot points at the end, with Billy Batson’s foster family all getting Shazam powers of their own and Mark Strong’s Dr. Sivana meeting up with Mr. Mind in the stinger, so hopefully there are enough stories left to tell in the sequel—because we now know when that sequel is happening. As reported by Deadline, Warner Bros. and New Line’s Shazam! 2 is going to be released on April 1, 2022, and that’s no joke (har har). Deadline doesn’t have any specifics about the film, but we can assume that the whole core cast, including the Shazam-powered versions of the kids, will be returning.
Here’s an interesting thing, though: Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam is going to open in December of 2021, a.k.a. just a few months before April of 2022. As far as we know, Shazam isn’t going to be in that movie at all (even though Black Adam is basically the Shazam villain), but the fact that Black Adam is being introduced right before the Shazam sequel does seem like a hint that he might pop up in that movie. Either way, if Warner Bros. is putting out two movies with super-guys who have lightning bolts on their chests in the span of five months, someone’s going to have to explain to the general public how and why these characters are related. We’re not saying Black Adam will definitely appear in Shazam! 2, but what better way to raise the stakes from the first movie than by having Billy fight a guy who has his same powers, has had the powers for much longer, and also he’s the freakin’ Rock. Zachary Levi seems like a nice enough guy, but don’t even act like you don’t want to see him get beat up by The Rock.