Shazam Sequel Should Include Sinbad as a Genie
If you’re unaware, one of the greatest mysteries of our modern era is what ever happened to that Sinbad Genie movie so many people claim to have seen as a kid? As it turns out, there never was a Sinbad Genie movie, despite all the anecdotal claims otherwise. So is this really just the Mandela Effect at play or is there really some secret cabal scrubbing this film out of existence?
Turns out there might be a whole other explanation, and this one involves time travel! There isn’t a Sinbad Genie movie….yet. But there could be eventually. And maybe this collective memory from our childhood is some kind of timeline-spanning psychic dream, memories from the future that leaked into our childhood somehow.
Okay, yes, maybe that’s all bullshit, but still fun to think about and with the phenomenon of this mysterious Sinbad Genie movie that never seemed to exist, surely society has an obligation to make it a reality.
That’s the proposal from Clayburn Griffin of the We Understood That Reference podcast, a new podcast all about superhero movies. In the latest episode, Clayburn and his co-host Nikhil Kasbekar discuss the 2019 film Shazam about a young boy who gets the ability to transform himself into a grown-up superhero, played by the wonderfully hilarious and perfectly childish Zachary Levi of Chuck and Mrs. Maisel fame.
While the film was one of DC’s most well-received in recent years, it has seemed to fly under the radar somehow. The future of Shazam is still in question, with rumors being that a spin-off might come as a streaming series starring The Rock. A potential straight sequel of the film is also in the works, though production has been delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Perhaps we’ll hear an update during DC’s FanDome event scheduled for late August.
In their podcast episode, Clayburn first brings up genies in reference to Shazzan, a children’s cartoon from the late ’60s. He explains he had some vague memories of this as a kid and thought it was Shazam. So, he was understandably surprised the 2019 DC film had no genies whatsoever.
That conversation quickly led to discussion of the 1996 film Kazaam starring Shaquille O’Neal. This is the movie that most-assuredly did not star Sinbad.
Fortunately, Clayburn and Nikhil have a great solution to the Sinbad Genie problem, and conveniently works into a potential sequel for Shazam too, which will perhaps increase the confusion over Shazam and Shazzan. “People are really convinced that this is a thing, which is why it’s important that we make it a thing for them,” Clayburn says toward the end of the episode. “Plus Sinbad hasn’t been doing much lately. He needs the work.” The podcasters point to Jingle All the Way to prove out Sinbad’s bonafides as a superhero villain.
Many people claiming to have seen this mysterious Sinbad Genie movie seem to remember it being called “Shazaam”, so a Sinbad Genie coming out of a future Shazam sequel would finally close the loop on this crazy Mandela Effect. Though it would undoubtedly raise serious questions about the concept of time. Were we really remembering the future before it happened?
While we’re waiting for DC’s upcoming FanDome to give us updates on where their superheroes are heading in the coming years, let’s push to make the Sinbad Genie a reality as a future Shazam villain. The spacetime continuum could be at stake here.
Kazaam. Shazzan. Shazam!
