'Shazam!' Chinese Trailer References Other DC Heroes And Shows Off New Footage

We are now officially in the eye of the Shazam! marketing storm. A new clip debuted yesterday, tickets went on sale this morning for early screenings, and now a new international trailer is here that shows off even more footage from Warner Bros. and DC's upcoming superhero film. Like most of the snippets we've seen thus far, there's a heavy emphasis on comedy in this trailer, including a fun little Aquaman reference and an amusing joke I've never seen in a superhero movie before.

Zachary Levi and the two young protagonists in this cast, Asher Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer, are so full of energy that they seem like they were genetically engineered not only to star in this film, but to sustain those high energy levels over the course of a long press campaign, too.

Though this is a standalone film, there are a couple of DC movie references in the new footage. Grazer's Freddy Freeman – a kid who's obsessed with superheroes (and even has Batman memorabilia in his room) – says that Shazam is just as cool as Superman, a little kid plays with Superman and Batman action figures while humming John Williams' classic Superman theme song (raising a whole set of questions about the timeline of events in this fictional world), and then there's the Aquaman shout-out at the end, where Freddy seems aghast that anyone could even imply that Aquaman isn't awesome.

But for me, the best joke in this trailer (and, unfortunately, what I suspect will be one of the best jokes in the whole movie) is when Shazam and Mark Strong's Dr. Sivana are fighting their way across the city and trying to talk to each other, but they're so far away that the other person can't hear what they're saying. It's a way to add some freshness to a situation we've seen dozens of times before, and I hope the film has a few more moments like this up its sleeve that it's saving for the movie itself.

Here's the film's official synopsis:

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson's (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he'll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).

Shazam! will play in a special early engagement on March 23, and it opens in wide release on April 5, 2019.