Zachary Levi has additional thoughts.
Just days after the Shazam: Fury of the Gods star made headlines for his comments about “dumb” actors’ strike rules (“taken out of context”) and a few weeks after calling movie critics “insanely unkind” in their Shazam! sequel reviews and a few months after seemingly knocking Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for reportedly not wanting Levi’s DC character in Black Adam (dude, you were better off), now Levi is tackling the quality of Hollywood films.
Speaking at Fan Expo Chicago on Saturday and reported by Entertainment Weekly, the 42-year-old actor took a shot at studio filmmaking.
“I personally feel like the amount of content that comes out of Hollywood that is garbage — they don’t care enough to actually make it great for you guys,” Levi said, reportedly to enthusiastic applause. “They don’t. How many times do you watch a trailer and go, ‘Oh my God, this looks so cool!’ Then you go to the movie and it’s like, ‘This was what I get?’ They know that once you’ve already bought the ticket and you’re in the seat, they’ve got your money. And the only way for us to change any of it is to not go to the garbage. We have to actively not choose the garbage. It’ll help. It’ll help a lot.”
On the SAG-AFTRA strike, Levi was at Manchester Comic-Con in July and told the audience, “I’m not allowed to talk about … this is so dumb. I’m not allowed to talk about any of my previous work. I’m not allowed to talk about movies that I may be a superhero in. I’m not allowed to talk about TV shows that I may have been a nerd who worked at a Best Buy…” After the comments went viral, Levi clarified, “It’s come to my attention that an offhand remark I made in jest last weekend is being taken out of context,” Levi said in a statement Friday. “So let me be very clear. I fully support my union, the WGA, and the strike … But we also cannot forget our fans during this strike. Fans that spend their money and energy traveling far distances to talk with us about our work that means so much to them, we should be able to engage.”
The Shazam! sequel controversy was more tangled, with Levi seemingly calling out Johnson after a Wrap report said the Black Adam star blocked Justice Society characters from appearing in Fury of the Gods and likewise shot down the possibility of a Levi cameo in his movie. He then later clarified, “I may or may not have, you know, reposted something in my Stories about a story that I had nothing to do with that [The Wrap] had reported on, and then I got flack about it because people were saying ‘Oh, what are you doing? You’re trying to blame this guy because your movie’s not doing well. Like, you’re trying to blame us,’” Levi said in an Instagram Live on Thursday. “Listen, I haven’t blamed anybody. There’s not one single person that I have blamed for anything about the way that our movie has performed.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Levi’s reps for any additional comment.
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