Shazam!

The Hollywood Reporter carries the news that Peter Segal is now attached to direct Shazam! New Line Cinema are currently developing the new superhero movie based around DC's Billy Batson, a young lad who, when he utters the magic word Shazam becomes Captain Marvel, the world's mightiest mortal (the Cap pretty much rivals Superman in terms of power). The Big Red Cheese has always been one of my favourite superheroes, so I am interested to see how this pans out, although the cynical part of my wonders if it is simply more mining by Hollywood for any superhero nuggets while they are the box office flavour-du-jour.

In recent years the character has only been called Captain Marvel inside the comic while Shazam is used on the cover due to a copyright snafu with Marvel who have a similarly named character - all the more ironic given the Shazam Marvel started life with Fawcett way back in the Golden Age and was attacked by DC then as a blatant Superman copy.