Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom and Shazam! Fury of the Gods are once again doing the release date shuffle, with Warner Bros. bumping their superhero tentpoles to 2023.
Both blockbusters have already been shunted around the calendar, most recently Shazam! Fury of the Gods was moved a few days in order to avoid clashing with James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.
Now the Zachary Levi headlined sequel has been asked to swim a bit further to a March 17th, 2023 release date. This has a ripple effect on the further adventures of his fishy friend, because that was a date previously held by Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, which now moves to December 25th, 2023.
Shazam! was a critical and commercial hit having grossed $366 million off a $100 million budget, so Warner Bros. decision to avoid the potentially all-conquering Avatar sequel makes financial sense, while it’s easy to forget that the original Aquaman made over $1.1 billion at the box-office, so Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom’s repositioning to Christmas 2023 is seemingly just part of the whole Warner Bros. Discovery restructure.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is being directed by David F. Sandberg, and sees the return of Zachary Levi alongside fellow cast members Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Faith Herman, Meagan Good, Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand, D.J. Cotrona, Marta Milans, Cooper Andrews, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler in an as-yet-unrevealed role.
Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom finds James Wan returning to direct Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson , Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Patrick Wilson, Temuera Morrison, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Indya Moore, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, and Pilou Asbæk in an as-yet-unrevealed role.