You probably never thought you’d see Shazam! and Shazam: Fury of the Gods director David F. Sandberg helm another IP film or franchise ever again — and honestly, he didn’t either. But now that his new film Until Dawn is about to arrive in theaters, he’s reflecting on the “very, very crazy” backlash surrounding his previous DC Cinematic Universe flops and what made him agree to return to the world of IP.
“What I loved about the script [is] that it wasn’t trying to recreate the game,” Sandberg told GamesRadar+ about the beloved horror game turned film. “Trying to condense 10 hours into two, or something like that. But it is scary still, even though we’re doing a new thing.” He also noted that, even in this instance where he’s working on a game property, IP fans are really particular about how they want their favorite story to be realized on screen.
“I mean, to be honest, fans can get very, very crazy and very angry with you. You can get, like, death threats and everything so after Shazam 2, I was like, ‘I never wanna do another IP-based movie because it’s just not worth it,'” the filmmaker added of the DCU experience and its aftermath.
However, he was intrigued by the potential of the story Until Dawn presents. “But then I was sent this script, and I was like, ‘Ah, this would be so much fun to do, to do all these kinds of horrors? I kind of have to do it, and hope that the people see what we’re trying to do and like it,’” Sandberg said. “I really thought it was brilliant of the writers to come up with this time loop idea where the night starts over because then you do kind of get that feel of the game, when you’re replaying it and making different choices. I think it’s very much in the spirit of the game.”
The filmmaker is intimately aware of the idea that you can’t please every fan when you’re adapting an IP property, but his approach seems to be the best way to capture the hearts of the Until Dawn fans. “I think we would’ve gotten a lot of critique if we had tried to [recreate the game], because people would’ve been like, ‘It’s not as good. It’s not the same actors, because, you know, they’re older now,'” the Shazam director explained. “You wouldn’t be able to better the game, so you’d just be in a losing situation.”
Until Dawn was written by Blair Butler and Gary Dauberman, who is perhaps best known as the writer of It: Chapter Two, and stars Ella Rubin. The film arrives in theaters on April 25, 2025.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
