By Chris Snellgrove | Published
While the first Shazam While the film proved to be a success, the failure of the sequel was effectively the beginning of the end for lead actor Zachary Levi’s career. He apparently came out as an anti-vaxxer at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and according to one of his colleagues, these beliefs have recently brought him to a whole new low. Levi and Laura Benanti both starred in the Broadway play She loves meand she recently called him out for suggesting that her co-star Gavin Creel’s cancer death was actually due to his vaccination.
Zachary Levi’s co-star walks off
Creel was diagnosed in July and died on September 30, and Zachary Levi subsequently hosted a pro-Trump Instagram Live. In doing so, he brought up Creel’s death and bizarrely said, “If these COVID vaccinations weren’t forced on the American public, theaters wouldn’t be pushed and taken advantage of,” before pausing and then blaming “the people at the top.” To most people, it sounded like he was implying that Creel’s cancer was caused by the vaccine, which upset co-star Laura Benanti: “That (Levi) is using (Creel’s) memory – a person he’s not with was friends – to use his memory for his political purposes.” Agenda… I thought, “F– you forever,” she said.
Interestingly, Benanti disagrees with those who think this conservative virtue signaling is “career suicide” simply because “Christian, faith-based television and film is huge.” She believes Zachary Levi is “going to be a big star in this field” and “make more money than he ever has before,” a possibility that makes her “disgusting.” Only time will tell how much Levi’s increasingly vocal politics will help his career, but blaming a co-star’s cancer death on a COVID vaccine is a new low for a star that I honestly didn’t think would happen could sink much lower.
The Rise and Fall of Zachary Levi
The breakthrough for this DC star was the television series feedand he also voiced Flynn Rider in the hugely successful Disney film Confused. All of this led to him being cast in the role of the title character Shazam!After grossing $367.8 million on a budget of $90 million to $100 million, this film seemed poised to become a Hollywood megastar. However, Shazam 2 was a huge flop, grossing only $134.1 million on a budget of $110-125 million, and the star’s reaction to the film’s failure revealed a sad and downright desperate aspect of his personality that might otherwise have been would have remained hidden.
After Shazam 2 bombed, Zachary Levi posted a series of meltdown videos on Instagram in which he appeared to hold back tears and blamed Dwayne Johnson for killing a post-credits cameo tied to the superhero sequel Black Adam. This complaint is particularly bizarre because while Johnson’s selfish decision seems very petty, there’s no way the addition of a tepid post-credits sequence with relatively nameless characters like Hawkman and Cyclone would have changed anything Shazam 2 turned into a monster hit. It was even sadder to see Levi end one of his videos by asking fans to consider watching his sequel instead John Wick 4.
Zachary Levi’s first big film after that Shazam 2 Was Harold and the purple crayonand it was also a bomb, as it only grossed $32 million on a $40 million budget. This second big-budget failure seemingly spelled the end of the actor’s chance at becoming a major movie star, and many have speculated whether the star’s downfall began with his early 2023 post on X in which he agreed with a user that the COVID Vaccine maker Pfizer “is a real danger to the world” about two months ago Shazam 2 premiered. By suggesting that co-star Gavin Creel somehow developed cancer from the vaccine, the star proves he has learned nothing from previous failures.
Tragically perfect cast
Once upon a time, I would have felt a little compassion for Zachary Levi. Because who wouldn’t be sad if their most ambitious career dreams were destroyed? That changed last year when the star appeared on the Storyteller with Andrew Erwin podcast and admitted that he hated seeing projects delayed due to COVID because “when the pandemic came, I had no money and no income” and he had to rely on friends because money was “very tight.”
Somehow I can’t help but think that if I had been paid millions of dollars for lucrative acting jobs and licensing deals, I wouldn’t suddenly be broke if my source of income temporarily stopped because producers were trying to save lives. And even if I were completely broke, I wouldn’t put everything into a politics of resentment that leads me to politicize the tragic death of my co-star in an apparent attempt to win over the people who believe that vaccines cause cancer cause.
However, based on his antics, I have to admit that Zachary Levi was perfect for the role of Shazam. After all, who else in Hollywood could so perfectly embody what it’s like to have a child’s mind in an adult’s body?
Source: People