Why Shazam! Reshot Mark Strong's Intro As Sivana, And How It Originally Looked

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Why Shazam! Reshot Mark Strong's Intro As Sivana, And How It Originally Looked

Reshoots are pretty commonplace in filmmaking, especially for blockbusters. Big studio films are almost guaranteed to reserve a block of time for reshoots. Sometimes things change in the editing room and filmmakers decide they need to get the cameras back out. For example, that very same thing happened on Shazam! The fun superhero film reshot the intro scene for its villain, Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong), because the room he was in was a bit too sterile.

In Shazam!, Dr. Sivana is a man obsessed with breaking into the Rock of Eternity and freeing the Seven Deadly Sins, a group of demons who symbolize the worst traits in humanity. Technically, the first time we see Sivana is as a child in the opening minutes of the film, but the scene that was reshot was his intro as an adult.

The scene in question had Sivana overseeing the questioning of a person who visited the Rock of Eternity in the hopes that he could finally get a clue to return there. Originally, the room he was in was much more sterile with blank white walls, but director David F. Sandberg felt that this wasn't quite the right way to introduce his baddie.

Replying to a comment on Twitter, David F. Sandberg revealed that there wasn't enough extra footage to do a director's cut of Shazam! The footage on screen is exactly what he wanted and all of the unused footage is really just alternate takes of scenes in the film. As an example, he showed a pic of the original introduction for Sivana. It's still the same scene, it just takes place in a different room.

While I can't remember for the life of me what this conference room looked like in the actual movie, I think it was a good call to change the room. It's pretty boring looking, and while I'm sure it could have been spruced up in post-production, that wouldn't likely change much.

We don't know what else was changed in the film during reshoots, but maybe some of these alternate takes will be available on the digital and home release of Shazam! The movie has been enjoying a pretty healthy run at the box office, earning $322.8 million worldwide at the box office. That's pretty good for the first film in what is sure to be a franchise, and DC's hot streak still lives on.

If you missed out on Shazam! or just want to kill some time before Avengers: Endgame later this week, you can still catch the superhero film in theaters. For everything else DC has coming down the pipeline, here's our DC movie guide. If you'd like to know what else is coming this year to plan out all your upcoming theater trips, here's our 2019 movie release guide.