Last month we learned that Shazam would start production early next year, and David Sandberg confirmed at Comic-Con that he’d be directing. Sandberg was promoting his upcoming movie Annabelle: Creation with Moviefone today, and they asked about his upcoming DC Comics project.

“This will be very different than what I’ve done in the feature space, because it’s not a horror movie and it’s a much lighter tone. But it’s something that I look forward to trying out, even though I plan to return to horror in some fashion,” Sandberg explained. “My background, back in Sweden, before I started doing horror shorts, I was doing animated comedy shorts. It’s not totally alien to me to have more of a comedy approach. I look forward to taking that on in a feature.”

Sandberg said that Shazam isn’t a character he was familiar with growing up, but revealed the source material that he’s looking at to learn more about him.

“It wasn’t a character I grew up with. It was published in Sweden, where I’m from, in the ’70s, so it’s a little before my time. So I only knew him from the Justice League,” Sandberg admitted. “It’s not until now that I’m getting into the comics and reading a lot of the old ones, the Geoff Johns ones, ‘The Power of Shazam,’ and looking at a bunch of animation. So I’m really getting to know the character.”

Sandberg also confirmed that New Line, Warner Bros.’ sister company, will be making the movie. Based on previous interviews with The Rock, who will no longer be a part of the project, Shazam is expected to be a part of Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe.

Update: After this interview was published, Sandberg confirmed to a fan on Twitter that Shazam is part of the DCEU.

Yes — David F. Sandberg (@ponysmasher) August 2, 2017

SOURCE: Moviefone