Shazam Mandela effect has everyone wondering about the movie's post-credits scene (2024)

A new Mandela effect, which is a term for when a group of people share the same false memory, seems to have sprung up around DC film Shazam.

The movie has two post-credits scenes – one shows villain Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) in jail with Mister Mind, a talking caterpillar, while the other shows Zachary Levi's Billy Batson trying to trick Jack Dylan Grazer's Freddy Freeman into thinking Billy can talk to fish. A big section of the internet seems convinced there was a different scene, though, with this imagined one showing the Shazam family taking their seats on some stone thrones – complete with an empty chair teasing Black Adam.

Shazam's director, David F. Sandberg, took to Twitter to try and clear up the misconception: "Sounds like a Mandela effect thing. It was never in the finished movie, we cut it since the end was dragging. It was only included as a deleted scene."

The debate continued, and Sandberg eventually tweeted: "This is so weird. People keep arguing they saw Shazam with the throne scene in it, but we cut it early on. Never finished vfx/DI and the music is taken from another scene. It's only ever been a deleted scene released as an extra. I don't think we even had it in test screenings."

He then posted a poll to gauge if people think they saw the movie with or without the throne scene. The results are a little too close for comfort – 46.1% of those who answered said they did see the throne scene, while 53.9% said they didn't.

This wouldn't be the first time a movie named Shazam has blown everyone's minds, though. New Statesman have the full, bizarre story, but essentially: plenty of people remember a film, said to be named Shazaam and to have starred comedian Sinbad as a wish-granting genie – but this film doesn't actually exist. Sinbad himself denies ever playing the role, and there's a chance that this film is in fact Kazaam, starring Shaquille O'Neal, that people are misremembering.

At DC FanDome, the Shazam: Fury of the Gods panel even poked fun at the Sinbad/Shazaam confusion, with Sinbad appearing during the event.

Whether this is all a glitch in the Matrix, multiverse leakage, or simply a whole bunch of people remembering both Shaza(a)ms wrong, we'll never know for sure. In the meantime, though, Black Adam arrives July 29, 2022 and Shazam: Fury of the Gods lands June 2, 2023. You can check out how to watch DC movies in order to tide you over until then.

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