The SHAZAM! Superhero Suit Cost up to $1 Million to Create and the Director Explains Why
We all know that it’s not cheap to make the superhero movies that we are seeing today. A ton of money goes into to making these things, including the awesome costumes that we see the actors wear. You know that costume that Zachary Levi wears in Shazam!? Well, apparently each costume cost a million dollars to make!
Some of you might think that’s surprising, but I don’t think it is. A ton of work goes into the creation of these suits! Not only are there the physical suits that had to be made, there’s also the digital visual process it went through. It was explained by costume designer Leah Butler that there were 10 suits made for the film at $1 million dollars a pop.
While talking to TotalFilm, Butler talked about what went into creating the suit, saying:
“The exterior suit is a spandex suit that goes over a musculature suit, and each muscle has been sculpted on the body of Zach so it accents and highlights his shape and size. There is actually a battery in the back - we luckily had a cape to cover it all up or I don’t know where we would have put all that stuff - and it is remotely lit through a switchboard operator. There is wiring throughout the costume. It’s a 26-volt AA rechargeable battery. It lasts about two hours at full charge.”
Butler went on to say:
“It took 16 weeks to build the costume. We had to scan Zach’s body and start building the costume even before he started his very strict regime — his diet and working out.” They also made a more physical copy of their star, having “a sculptor who sculpts Zach’s body so we can have the body form available.” With this, the seamstresses, the illustrators, the manufacturers? “Each suit costs, oh boy, upwards of a million? We have ten suits.”
I really love the design of the suit, but is it worth the cost? If the movie ends up being a big success, you bet it is!
Director David F. Sandberg recently took to Twitter to respond to the report, and he went into a little more detail on all of the things that goes into the suits that are made for these kinds of films. It’s actually pretty fascinating.
In regards to questions about what Shazam’s suit cost, short answer is I don’t actually know the final number. Longer answer that explains why these things are expensive, see my comment on reddit: pic.twitter.com/QfQIYkxKTa
— David F. Sandberg (@ponysmasher) January 17, 2019
"We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (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 (Strong)."
Shazam! also stars Mark Strong as Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Djimon Hounsou as The Wizard, Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman, Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Grace Fulton as Mary Bromfield, Ross Butler, Adam Brody, and Michelle Borth.
Shazam! will be released on April 5th, 2019.
Via: SyFy