IGN.com chatted with director Peter Segal from the editing bay of 'Get Smart'. The director talked about 'Shazam', which may potentially be his next feature.
Segal said he's not looking to make the movie into a comedy, but rather remain faithful to the comics.
"But it is a 13-year-old boy who becomes a superhero, and I think there is an element of 'Big' in that and I think there always was in the comic book," Segal said. "When Stan Lee came to me many, many years ago about doing Fantastic Four and I was on – and Chris Columbus ironically as well – I was on Fantastic Four for about a year and a half, I asked Stan: 'Why me? Why Chris Columbus originally before Chris handed it to me?' And he said, 'Because all of my heroes have flaws and in those flaws there's a sense of humor and humanity.' And that's what he saw in some of my work. So I think that would be the common theme; no matter what the story is, if I could bring some of what I learned over the past decade or so to those kinds of stories, I think I can help tell those stories even better."
Based on his comments, it appears that the director may strive for a tone that resonates with the mythic qualities of the story.
"It's interesting because so many stories have borrowed from the original Shazam!/Captain Marvel comic book that you see very similar themes in Star Wars. And so by the time it comes back – it's 2008 and hopefully we'll start working on that this year – we now have to navigate through all the themes that have been borrowed from Shazam! and recreate them and make them look fresh unto themselves again. But it's going to have a very serious tone with moments of humor and I think it'll be somewhere in between 'Spider-Man' and 'Fantastic Four'."
The director also confirmed rumors that he's hoping to cast Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who also appears in 'Get Smart'. The pair were eager to work together again and Segal promised to get a 'Shazam' script for Johnson to review as soon as one was ready.
"John August is writing it and then we went on strike, so I don't have a draft to show him yet. But I just started telling him the story and I thought that he might be a great Black Adam. And what's fascinating now is even though the comic book was created and born in 1939 with Captain Marvel as the star, today Geoff Johns has made (Black Adam) one of the preeminent bad guys in several comics. And so that puts even more pressure on Dwayne for that role, in a good way."
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