Emerald City Video

On April 18th, 2018, I got to celebrate Christmas in Philadelphia. Or maybe Fawcett City. But actually, in Toronto.

I remember the exact date, because it’s also when Action Comics #1000 came out, and the Superman fan in me had to get up early in the morning to visit Silver Snail Comics in Toronto, where I was in town to visit the set of Shazam!.

The film, one of the best-reviewed installments in the DC Extended Universe, starred Chuck‘s Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel…err, “Shazam,” not to be confused with The Wizard, also sometimes known as Shazam. The character, who originated in the 1940s in Fawcett Comics, was one of the most popular early superheroes, and even got a bunch of spinoffs featuring his supporting characters, sidekick, and a talking tiger, all of whom shared in his magic powers.

In the movie, Levi is the older half of a wish-fulfillment superhero, with Asher Angel playing the young Billy Batson. Batson is granted the ability to transform himself into Shazam by shouting “Shazam!” and being struck by magical lightning.

Snow is everywhere in “Philadelphia,” and holiday decorations are all around. While it’s certainly a stretch to call Shazam! a Christmas movie, it’s hard to argue convincingly against it, since the villains are eventually defeated by the spirit of friendship and family, in the snow, at a Christmas market and carnival.

Hanging out in the destroyed Christmas carnival was fun, and I wish we’d been able to see the photos the movie’s publicity team took of us reporters there.

The movie is charming, and has a more genuine “Amblin feel” than most movies that are going for that vibe. Why? In part, because it doesn’t really care if it scares your kids just a little bit. The Seven Deadly Sins are pretty creepy, and there’s a boardroom massacre to rival that of Dogma (which, while funnier than Shazam!, is plenty R-rated).

The idea of the movie taking place at Christmas was likely dictated by the need to shoot in Toronto in the winter and spring, but it served the movie well, playing into the sense of the film being a fantastical world that played in childhood fantasy.

And the holiday shopping rush gave me a scene I’ve always wanted.

I remember walking through Shoppingtown Mall in the ’90s, looking up at the glass skylight with the metal frame, and thinking it would be incredible to see a Shazam! movie in which Billy called down the thunder from inside a small, the lightning crashing through the skylight and raining glass all over him.

It took another 15 years or so, but a shot almost exactly like that one actually did happen in Shazam!, validating my teenage cinematic instincts.