“I’m Kazaam, You’re Shazam”: Shaquille O’Neal Eases Zachary Levi’s Torment Years After $367 Million Earning Movie Ignited Chaos

Somebody finally matched Shaq’s freak! And it’s the person we never saw coming. Adam Lefkoe spilled the tea on the hilarious encounter between Shaquille O’Neal and a versatile A-lister on this week’s The Big Podcast. It went down during an All-Star game, where NBA stars, hip-hop emcees, and Hollywood stars collide. The TNT crew, including the Inside Guys and Lefkoe were in the green room. And in comes, the one and only Zachary Levi.

The thing with Levi is that he’s such a chameleon, it’s hard to separate him from his characters. So Ernie Johnson goes, “Hey, Kurt Warner!” That’s the legendary quarterback who Levi portrayed in the biopic, American Underdog. Forgive Ernie for a sports reference.

It confused Shaq though. Lucky for him, Lefkoe was there. “Shaq looks at me, he goes, ‘is that Kurt Warner?’ And I go, ‘no.’ He goes, ‘who is he?’ I go, ‘he’s this guy in this movie Shazam.'” That seemed to ring a bell because Lefkoe said, “And he does the classic Shaq-thing where he winks at you, where like, he’s going to do something with this information and the guy [Levi] sat down and Shaq goes, ‘I’m Kazam, you’re Shazam. We’re brothers.'”

The highlight would be Levi’s reaction to Shaq’s dad-joke and a seeming unawareness of the confusion their movies were entangled in. The DCEU actor’s face not only “lit up” according to Lefkoe, “This actor now is like Shaq knows my movies.” 

Of course, Kazaam knows Shazam. O’Neal may have seen American Underdog as well as the superhero flick because he was all praise for Levi’s body of work. This is the closest we’ve come to that Shazam-Kazaam crossover we need.

Shazam needs Superman Shaq

Zachary Levi himself confessed that he would get confused between Shazam and Kazaam. Back in 2018, when the movie promotions were in motion, Shazam got confused with several other movies by a similar name. Kazam was among the popular one. Both the movies involve similar theme of a young boy and magical powers, making the case for the mix up. But that wasn’t all.

Entertainment reports that people, for some reason, had believed Sinbad the comedian had starred in the movie and that it was named Shazam. To make matters worse, he went to make a spoof video of the fake Shazam movie. “This is insanity!” Levi had exclaimed.

Say what you want about O’Neal’s campy 1996 genie movie, but it is that memorable. He’s not alone either. His co-star Meagan Good made that mix-up into the best career decision ever.

Good has worked with Shaq before during her Nickelodeon days and is more familiar with Kazaam. She went into the Shazam audition assuming it’s a reboot of O’Neal’s movie. She ended up as the older version of Darla alongside Zachary Levi in the DC franchise, for a movie that went on to make $367 million in the box office.

It’s about time NBA’s Superman step into the DC universe too. In fact, the franchise creators loved the coincidence so much, they tried to get Shaq to cameo as Kazaam in the second movie. It’s our loss that this mashup didn’t happen.

Stay tuned for more such updates. And join us for the exciting pilot episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and SEC All-Freshman Team Selection, Silas Demary Jr.