Zachary Levi believes cinemagoers were “insanely unkind” to his superhero sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

During an appearance on The FilmUp Podcast, the actor admitted he was baffled by the low critics’ score the movie received on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. It currently has 48% from critics and 86% from audiences on the site.

Reflecting on the franchise’s uncertain future, Levi said, “I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received. The audience score is still quite good, but the critics’ score was very oddly and perplexingly low, and people were insanely unkind.

“I’m not saying Shazam! Fury of the Gods is some perfect, Orson Welles-like masterpiece, but it’s a good darn movie.”

Levi admitted the social media landscape had changed a lot between the first film’s release in 2019 and the sequel’s cinema run in March this year.

“Hate, online hate and haters and trolls, and factions and all that has just gotten more galvanized in its toxicity,” he explained. “I think there are people who genuinely, unfortunately, want to destroy certain projects because they don’t like them, or they don’t like me, or they don’t like other people involved in them or whatever.”

While he doesn’t know if he will play Shazam ever again, Levi at least hopes that people will realise the movie was good one day.

“I just hope that or believe that history will show… it will be one of those things that people will go back, people will watch Fury of the Gods on home streaming or on a plane or whatever, and it will be this movie that they heard so much s**t about and then they will be like, ‘Well, wait a minute,'” he shared.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods also starred Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler, Djimon Hounsou, and Jack Dylan Grazer.

© Cover Media