The closing credits scenes of “Shazam 2: Fury Of The Gods” almost seem as if the great DC upheavals of the past few weeks and months hadn’t happened: The Justice Society from “Black Adam” is mentioned in the mid-credits scene and a “Shazam 3 referenced in the post-credits scene, though it’s by no means certain we’ll see the JSA or Shazam again under new DC lead James Gunn and Peter Safran. So it’s worth taking a closer look at the two scenes:
Mid-credits scene: “Peacemaker”, “Black Adam” and the Justice Society
In the mid-credits scene after the animated credits do we see them?The suicide squad‘and the DC Series’Peacekeeper‘ and ‘Black Adam’, confessed Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee). The two are under orders from Suicide Squad leader Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), to Shazam (Zakaria Levi) to recruit for the Justice Society.
But this doesn’t mean another appearance of the Justice Society – in “Black Adam” consisting of Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Atom Smasher and Cyclone – is guaranteed and the super team now includes Shazam. As mentioned in the introduction, DC is currently in the middle of a massive upheaval.
The old DC universe, the so-called DCEU, should be history for the most part, and that very likely includes actors and characters like Henry Cavill (Superman) and Ben Affleck (Batman), as well as “Black Adam” star Dwayne Johnson and the rest of the cast *inside of this movie.
Because “Black Adam” not only received rather bad reviews, with a worldwide gross of almost $ 393 million, the DC movie was also a disappointment at the box office. So we don’t really believe that the characters from this movie will be carried over to the new DC era. So is Shazam 2’s opening sequence just a holdover from the DCEU era? Again, it’s not that simple.
Because it looks like the new DC co-boss James Gunn directed himself “The Suicide Squad” and “Peacemaker” should act as a kind of link between the old and new DC universe. For example, there will be a second season of “Peacemaker”, a “Waller” series is also planned for the DCU and the character Weasel from “The Suicide Squad” will appear in “Creature Commandos”. So maybe the mid-credits scene from Fury Of The Gods will play a role in future DC projects after all…
Post-credits scene: “Shazam 3” featuring Dr. Sivana?
The second credits scene of “Shazam 2” is also not easy to interpret. In terms of content, the matter is still relatively simple: The post-credits scene at the very end of the credits of part 2 matches the mid-credits scene of the first “Shazam!”, in the villain Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) also received a visit from the talking caterpillar Mister Mind, also known from the DC comics.
The whole sequence is a reference to a comic book story arc, where Shazam and the rest of Shazamily explore seven very different magical realms, while Mind and Sivana plot sinister schemes in the background.
So the Part 2 post-credits scene makes a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the Part 1 mid-credits scene actually promised a different plot for the sequel — and now suggests that Dr. Shivana and Mr. Mind could still team up in a “Shazam 3”. However, it is unclear whether there will ever be a third part.
On the one hand, there is no other “Shazam!” movie among the first ten projects announced for the new DC universe (but not all of them are explicit). And on the other hand and more importantly: right now there are many indications that “Shazam: Fury Of The Gods” is underperforming at the box office than its predecessor, which was already more of a respectable success than a smash hit.
This is not only supported by the reviews, which are significantly less enthusiastic than part 1 (FILMSTARTS only gave it 3 out of 5 stars this time). Even initial projections project US box office earnings of just $30 to $35 million opening weekend – our sister site even bet on just $27.6 million in the first three days. In April 2019, Shazam! that number nearly to 53.5 million. Given these numbers, a third “Shazam!” movie seems pretty unlikely…