Shazam! (film) early 2000s, with multiple screenplay drafts by William Goldman, the team of Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, Bryan Goluboff, and John August. The version of the "Shazam!" script written by August, which went into pre-production in 2008, was an action-comedy which focused on the origin story of the hero, then known by his original name of Captain Marvel, and his young alter ego, Billy Batson. Peter Segal was attached as director and actor Dwayne Johnson was in talks to appear as the film's villain, Black Adam. The "Shazam!" film was being produced by New Line Cinema, which was absorbed into
Black Adam the Johnny DC comic book series "Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!" by Mike Kunkel, an all-ages series which follows its own continuity derived from Jeff Smith's 2007 miniseries "Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil". Black Adam appeared in the first four issues of "Billy Batson", published between late 2008 and early 2009. In this version, Black Adam's alter ego, Theo Adam, is a fourteen-year-old boy, although much of the rest of his backstory remains true to the original Fawcett version of the character. Within the context of the story, the wizard Shazam imprisoned the errant Theo Adam in