Excitement for Shazam! Fury of the Gods appears to be relatively muted, and at least part of that may be down to the sequel's villains. While we're excited to see what Rachel Zegler, Lucy Liu, and Helen Mirren bring to the table as the Daughters of Atlas, the newly created trio haven't necessarily thrilled comic book fans.
Shazam has a decent rogues gallery and the first movie's mid-credits scene suggested we'd get to see Mister Mind take centre stage alongside the returning Doctor Sivana in a sequel. Unfortunately, that won't happen.
Talking to Cinema Blend, Shazam! Fury of the Gods writer Henry Gayden offered an explanation for their absence.
"There was a long period of developing it and going down various alleys, like who the villain is, Sivana, Mister Mind, all these things that we did...It was a few months. And it was really fun. But what ended up happening is it felt redundant with the first movie."
"Because despite Mister Mind being a fascinating new edition, it still was a lot of Sivana and Billy, and it didn’t feel like it was telling an emotional next instalment," the writer continues. "It just felt like it was telling the natural next instalment, action-wise."
"So emotionally, when we got to the sisters and the Daughters of Atlas, it was about like, ‘How do we get these powers? Do we deserve them?’ Questioning that, and really telling that story was much more compelling than continuing the Sivana story right now."
While we can definitely see where Gayden is coming from here, it still feels like a missed opportunity not to do something with Mister Mind. There's always a chance he'll appear in another post-credits scene, of course, but a third movie isn't likely under the purview of DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.
The latter produces the Shazam! franchise, but with the sequel eyeing a dismal opening weekend, it might be hard to justify a threequel in the new DCU.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods arrives in theaters on March 17.