Although it may be hard to imagine Shazam! Fury of the Gods without Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren, it seems that early drafts were focused on a different set of villains: Mark Strong's Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind.
Shazam 2 stars Lucy Liu and Dame Helen Mirren as two of the trio known as The Daughters of Atlas. The third sister is played by Rachel Zegler, who musical fans may have seen in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. The three sisters spend the movie attempting to get the seed of The Tree of Life to revive their home realm. While their quest isn't initially catastrophic for Earth, Liu's character turns greedy and vengeful, and Billy and his family have to stop the Daughters of Atlas from destroying Earth.
While having a group of sisters as the bad guys play into Shazam 2's familial themes, it wasn't the writers' first plan. Co-writers Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan had planned to bring back Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind as the main antagonists of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. "There’s a scene where Sivana breaks out of prison without having to lift a finger because of Mister Mind's help, which is one of my favorite scenes I’ve written,” Gayden said to The Hollywood Reporter. “There was stuff there that was great, but none of it really serviced a natural growth for Billy. It felt a little redundant. It felt like we were doing the last movie just on a bigger scale." Instead, Sivana and Mister Mind were given their second end-credits scene, which plays off the first one that appeared after Shazam!
Sivana and Mister Mind's post-credits scene wasn't the only one attached to the movie. In a mid-credits scene, Billy is approached by Emilia Harcourt and John Economos, who DC fans might recognize from HBO Max's Peacemaker. Harcourt and Economos offer Billy a place in the Justice Society, which he eagerly agrees to until he finds out that the Justice Society is different from the Justice League. Both scenes indicate that this won't be the last audiences see of Billy, his family, or his villains, but since the recent change in direction at DC, Shazam's future is in question.
Regarding a third movie, Gayden expressed interest in bringing back Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind, but not as the main villains. Instead, he thought bringing the duo back for another post-credits scene would be a fun way to keep the two characters involved in the franchise while allowing him to explore different villains.
Due to Shazam! Fury of the Gods' disappointing performance during its opening weekend and the franchise's absence from any official DCU announcements for future projects, it's possible this will be the last time audiences see Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind. There may be hope for Levi's Shazam, as he could easily turn up in other projects. Still, he could just as easily join the club of discarded DC characters who've had their stories cut short by the DCU's grand plans.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is playing in theaters now.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter