In concept, he's been around for 80 years, same as the Batman.
However, the man we once knew as Captain Marvel now answers to "Shazam!", thanks to some copyright legalities dating back decades. Marvel Comics actually went so far as to issue a cease & desist order against DC after their first Shazam! book bowed at the end of 1972, since they acquired the copyright to Captain Marvel.
The core of the new film is based on Geoff Johns & Gary Frank's reimagining of the hero, which began in 2011. Johns advanced Billy Batson in age from 12 to 14, and decided that Billy & Mary were no longer directly related, much less fraternal twins. In the context of his story, Johns made Mary a high school senior, getting ready for college, all this despite living in a group home with Billy and four other youths, including canonical best pal Freddy Freeman. Worth noting is that in order to make his vision as separate from Superman as possible, Johns decided Billy wouldn't have a career in journalism, and Freddy wouldn't be hawking newspapers despite his disability.
One other alteration was made with Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (Mark Strong), who is not your average mad scientist. Turns out there's a twist to his story that recalls a similar plot device in "Fantastic Four". All I'll say is that Sivana's & Billy's fates are intertwined, and leave it at that.
Zachary Levi (ex-Chuck) hams it up as Shazam 2.0, inheriting the name from a certain wizard (Dijimon Hounsou), and allowing Billy to revel in his newfound power. Recalling Roy Thomas' reboot of 1987, as he was the one who originally decided Billy's mind would be in an adult body when powered, I could see this as having elements of "Big", which came out around that time, and the early 80's series, The Greatest American Hero, given Billy's struggles to adjust to his new powers. The wizard never did give him a guidebook, after all. I'm surprised they couldn't find Joey Scarbury's theme from the latter series for the soundtrack, as it would've fit perfectly.
Let's take a look at a trailer, which will have some scenes familiar to you from commercials....
Other trailers include:
"Dark Phoenix" (June 7): The likely coda for Fox's X-Men movie series is loosely based on Chris Claremont & John Byrne's 1980 story arc.
"Men in Black International": Emma Thompson & Colin Firth have to shepherd a new agent. Fourth film in this series, first without Will Smith.
"Dora & The Lost City of Gold": Live action spin-off from Nickelodeon's long running Dora The Explorer, except that Dora is now in high school. Michael Pena ("Ant-Man & The Wasp") plays Dora's father.
"The Secret Life of Pets 2": Self-explanatory funny animal silliness.
"Avengers: Endgame" (April 26): Clocks in at three hours, they say, to wrap up 11 years of plots, or so it'd seem.
"The Hustle": Anne Hathaway & Rebel Wilson in a female empowerment comedy of some sort. Soundtrack includes some vintage Tom Jones.
"Pokemon: Detective Pikachu" (May 9): Ryan Reynolds voices the title character, as the long running collectible card game franchise moves to live action, with a dash of CGI.
"Shazam!" rating: B+.
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