Since the explosion of "Sea King", Warner Bros. has understood that DC heroes should take the sunshine route of positive energy.
This was originally a very correct strategic direction. However, given that the DC Universe (DC Extended Universe, referred to as DCEU ) lacks a general planner who understands both movies and comics like Kevin Feige, the next "Thunder Shazam" is once again . It went off course and ended up making the film very mediocre.
Have a style in mind?
"Thunder Shazam" is directed by David F. Sandberg , who is the apprentice of "Aquaman" director Wen Ziren.
But obviously, he is far from his master.
The hero Shazam, because the main body is only a 10-year-old child, occasionally does some very naive and hilarious things, which is normal.
However, Sandberg probably felt that this would make the film too childish, so he thought of adding some special elements to it.
Therefore, the protagonist Billy, who looks very precocious and taciturn at the beginning of the film, has been thinking of various ways to find his biological mother.
However, after gaining the power of Shazam, he instantly turned into a super chatterbox. Not only did his mouth stop for a day, but he also made a lot of jokes.
This directly caused a serious sense of separation between the front and rear of the character.
Weren't you a very precocious child? Why does the age seem to be instantly -10 years old after gaining superpowers?
In fact, in the final analysis, it is because the current route of DC heroes is positive energy of sunshine, and if it is to take the route of "prematurity in order to find a mother", it seems too dark, so the director forcibly "sunshine" Billy later.
From this, we can see the gap between Sandberg and Wen Ziren.
His master is very clear about the tone of the film and the positioning of the characters, and will not change it after it is established.
On the one hand, Sandberg knew that Shazam was a hero who had to take the sunshine route, but on the other hand, he wanted to add some so-called "dark elements" into it.
Budget and Film
Since Warner Bros. originally positioned the film "Shazam of Thunder" as a low-cost light comedy film, the budget invested was not high, only $80 million .
But you must know that even in light comedy films, because Shazam, the hero himself, has many and strong superpowers, he can even wrestle with Superman, so there is still a lot of money spent on film special effects.
And Sandberg, as a director who made a low-budget horror film, is the first time he has received an investment of this level of $80 million, and he has no previous experience in dealing with such a budget.
Thus, its spending on the budget further exacerbated the crisis of Thunder Shazam.
For example, according to reports at the time, Shazam spent $ 1 million per uniform , and at least 6 uniforms were made before and after .
In other words, the uniforms alone cost almost one-eighth of the total budget . Unfortunately, even the final uniforms don't seem to be anything special.
Secondly, Sandberg also directly put the seven deadly sins of the comics and the Shazam family on the screen in the later stage . As we all know, a hero of Shazam has already spent a lot of money, and this time even the superpower members of the family are all on stage. How tight is this budget?
Warner Bros. later subsidized "Shazam of Thunder" by $20 million, but the result was still a drop in the bucket.
Because the film itself is positioned as a low-cost light comedy, it is impossible for Warner Bros. to add to the budget of "Aquaman", and making up the 20 million is the limit.
Under the circumstance that the budget was insufficient, spending was still reckless , and even thinking about expanding the pattern in the later stage, but the result was naturally self-defeating.
After all, special effects cost money.
Therefore, due to budget issues, the entire "Shazam of Thunder" has almost no serious fighting , often Shazam punches the villain, and then the camera cuts to the crowd, cuts back after a while, and the villain punches Shazam again. Punch, then start mouth cannon.....
For a superhero whose superpower setting is only slightly inferior to Superman, this kind of "fight" like playing at home is like a joke.
chain reaction
In fact, the problem of insufficient budget also expands the problem of film structure, which not only affects the action scenes, but also affects the literary drama of the film.
There are children's shoes to say, because the fight that goes to heaven requires post-production, so it is normal to need a budget. In this drama, some people talk and chat, how is it also affected by the budget?
In fact, this is a chain reaction .
Because the budget is limited, the quality of action scenes in the film is small, and because the amount of action scenes is small, the proportion of literary dramas will increase.
The literary drama of "Thunder Shazam" was originally quite ordinary, and the proportion has increased in this case, which undoubtedly makes this film a little self-explaining.
Most of the literary dramas in "Shazam of Thunder" focus on the word "family", mainly telling that Billy dislikes his adoptive parents' family and keeps looking for his biological mother, only to find out that his adoptive parents' family is his real home. , and the children of the adoptive parents' family are also their real family.
The story is actually relatively simple, but this is not a problem. The problem is that the expression of the film is too young.
For example, the conflict between Billy and the second male protagonist Freddie turned out to be because Billy didn't transform to "support" Freddy and show off in front of his classmates.
Of course, for children in their teens, this kind of thing can indeed be said to be contradictory, but for the audience, this too young way of expressing makes people feel quite inconsistent.
Because the first half of the movie exaggerated Billy's precociousness , and in the middle, Freddy has been instructing Billy how to use the power of Shazam, which also seems to be a little mature .
So it is said that these two people will turn their faces or even have a great contradiction because of such childish things? It can only be said that it is too forceful.
The most terrible thing is that because of the problem of insufficient budget mentioned above, the audience has to see this kind of low-level dramatic conflict in addition to the bad fight, and the result is very bad . "The much-maligned point.
Unbalanced group portraits
Since the Shazam family will all appear in the movie, Billy's six siblings should naturally be the characters that the movie focuses on.
But unfortunately, in the whole movie, except for Billy and Freddy, most of the writing is on the villain Dr. Shivana.
Among the 6 members of the Shazam family, only Billy and Freddy have enough roles and can portray them well.
For the other 4 people, Dara has a few scenes but is really good, Mary has a lot of scenes but almost no features, not to mention Eugene and Pedro, except for the introduction at the beginning, the back is almost like air.
All of this is actually due to the influence of director Sandberg's forcible expansion of the film's landscape.
As a result , half of the Shazam family are almost equal to tool people, and they are only pulled out because the film needs to show their faces.
The Shazam family did not appear in the movie originally, so the main characters of "Thunder Shazam" are actually Billy, Freddy, and the villain Shivana .
As for the rest of the Shazam family, it doesn't matter even if they don't have a lot of roles. The first film is an introduction, and in the sequel film, the group portraits are deepened so that they can also gain the power of Shazam. Obviously, this kind of planning is more normal and reasonable. .
If you want to take big steps, you must also consider the reality, otherwise it will only be self-defeating.
The production cost of "Thunder Shazam" was 100 million US dollars, and the final box office score was 140 million in North America and about 364 million in the world. In today's "Super Heroes", this result is quite average.
Of course, given its low cost, the film is still profitable, and the sequel has already been put on the agenda. I just hope to learn the lessons of the first film and make this series well. After all, family-oriented superheroes Movies are really rare.
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