The movie is centered around an orphaned teenage boy named Billy Batson, who can transform into an adult superhero by saying the magic word “Shazam!” The part is thus split between Asher Angel as the kid and Zachary Levi as the superhero.
When asked how to summarize the film in one sentence, Angel said “It’s a fun, family movie, and it’s—everyone’s gonna wanna watch it.”
“In one sentence, I would say this movie’s like—Superman meets Big,” Levi said, but concedes that not all fans will be “old enough and cool enough” to know about the latter.
Angel also noted that the character has a lot of similarities to Superman (played in the DCEU by Henry Cavill).
“I think it makes it unique that it’s you, in me,” Levi said. “Because Superman’s like, an alien from another planet, and you’re the World’s Mightiest Mortal,” he added, using one of the character’s nicknames from the comics.
Around halfway through the video, they obliged a fan who wanted them each to yell the movie’s titular magic word. “You realize this is going to happen for like, the rest of our lives,” Levi quipped. “Every time you go to a convention, somebody’s going to ask you.” To another question, they commented that Angel has had to yell the word at least once per day since filming started, while Levi has only had to say it twice.
The question that seems to have touched the two actors most deeply was from one fan who says that s/he grew up in foster care, and is glad that the film will give story a relatable story. Levi noted that he can’t think of any other superheroes with that background. “There have been orphans, kids with a lot of family problems, that’s for sure.”
As the event ended, we got to see the actors playing Billy’s foster siblings, or as Levi called it, “the Shazamily”—Grace Fulton (playing Mary Bromfield), Faithe Herman (Darla Dudley), Ian Chen (Eugene Choi) and Jovan Armand (Pedro Peña). All were carrying stuffed tigers in an apparently reference to comic book character Tawky Tawny, who may or may not be in the movie.
