Shazam! (2019)

Shazam! (2019) is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name. It was produced by New Line Cinema, DC Films, the Safran Company, and Seven Bucks Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures as the seventh installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). In 1974 Upstate New York, Thaddeus Sivana, a young boy, is riding in a car with his abusive father and brother Sid during a snowstorm. As they constantly mock and verbally harass him, he suddenly finds himself transported to the Rock of Eternity – a mystic temple in another dimension. There he meets Shazam, an ancient wizard who has spent centuries searching for someone pure-hearted to bestow his power and name as champion upon after his previous champion released the Seven Deadly Sins. The Sins tempt Thaddeus with promises of power if he frees them, but the wizard deems him unworthy and returns him to the car.

Confused and frustrated, Thaddeus’s emotions lead to a car accident that results in his father becoming paralyzed from the waist down and even more resentful towards him. Thaddeus receives a message through his 8-Ball toy from the Sins, instructing him to seek them out. In modern-day Fawcett City, Philadelphia, 14-year-old Billy Batson frequently runs away from foster homes in his relentless quest to find his birth mother, whom he lost at a carnival ten years ago. He takes drastic measures by trapping police officers in a store and attempting to locate his mother using their computer, but without success. Eventually, he is placed in a group home managed by Víctor and Rosa Vásquez along with five other foster children: Mary Bromfield, Pedro Peña, Eugene Choi, Darla Dudley, and avid superhero fan Freddy Freeman.