Shazam! From Warner Bros. Home Entertainment On July 16

When you combine Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury you get a super hero with wisdom, strength and speed (among other things).   These were formed into the magical acronym of “SHAZAM,” which turned the Fawcett Comics character of Billy Batson into Captain Marvel.

This was all laid out in the 1941 serial, Adventures of Captain Marvel, from Republic Pictures and directed by the legendary serial-making team of William Whitney and John English.

Somewhere between March of 1941 and April of this year (what’s that, something like 78 years later) there were a bunch of legal hassles in the comic universe (think: Marvel and DC, the titans of the super hero world duking it out legally) and the character of Captain Marvel became Carol Danvers and now resides at Disney (in the Marvel universe), while the character of Billy Batson is now in the DC universe and over at Warner Bros. 

It can get confusing, so we will just skip all of that and say that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced this week that director David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! will making its way home as a three-SKU array of packaged media product offerings on July 16.

The ARR is 102 days and domestic turnstiles hummed to the tune of $138.1 million during the film’s theatrical run (and counting).

Planned for release by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment are Combo Pack editions for both the 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) and Blu-ray (with DVD) formats.   There will also be a stand-alone DVD edition.

Billy Batson (Asher Angel — as Jonah in the Disney Channel comedy series, Andi Mack) is a foster care kid who is recruited by an aging (ancient) wizard by the name of Shazam (played by Djimon Hounsou) to take his place … and bestows upon the young teen his powers.    When Billy says the word “Shazam,” he turns into an adult “super hero” (and we use that in quotes) played by Zachary Levi, who proves to be pretty inept in the beginning since he’s had no formal training with his super powers.

Meanwhile, a backstory tells us that the ancient Shazam has been looking for a replacement for a number of years and one of those earlier attempts went awry when candidate Thaddeus Sivana (played by Mark Strong as an adult) was tempted by sin — Shazam, it seems, keeps the seven deadly sins at bay.

When the older Sivana gets wind of Billy Batson’s new persona (dang that social media), it is just a matter of time before an epic battle between good and evil takes place … complete with a cliffhanger ending (sequel is likely).

In the end, Shazam! is great fun and a refreshing change from the weight of certain “super hero” movies roaming around these days.

Bonus features include a gag reel, deleted scenes, a Shazam motion comic and five featurettes — “The Magical World of Shazam,” “Super Fun Zac,” “Carnival Scene Study,” “Shazamily Values” and “Who is Shazam?”