“Shazam!” star Zachary Levi railed against Hollywood “garbage” during an appearance at Chicago Fan Expo (via Entertainment Weekly). The actor urged attendees at the event to “actively not choose” to seek out garbage movies. Levi’s own 2023 release, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” is one of the biggest studio flops of the year.
“I personally feel like the amount of content that comes out of Hollywood that is garbage — they don’t care enough to actually make it great for you guys. They don’t,” Levi said. “How many times do you watch a trailer and go, ‘Oh my god, this looks so cool!’ Then you go to the movie and it’s like, ‘This was what I get?’”
“They know that once you’ve already bought the ticket and you’re in the seat, they’ve got your money,” he continued. “And the only way for us to change any of it is to not go to the garbage. We have to actively not choose the garbage. It’ll help. It’ll help a lot.”
Audiences greatly ignored “Fury of the Gods” earlier this year, as it only grossed $57 million at the domestic box office. Worldwide, “Fury of the Gods” didn’t even crack $160 million. Levi expressed confusion over the film’s box office results during a recent episode of “The FilmUp Podcast,” as he believes the sequel was good.
“I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received,” Levi said. “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,” he added. “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.”
Immediately after “Fury of the Gods” bombed at the box office, Levi took to Twitter to cite the film’s marketing as a problem. “This is a perfect family movie, and yet a lot of families aren’t aware of that. Which is just a shame,” he wrote.
“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is available to stream on Max.