10 Insane Ways Directors Appeared In Their Own Movies

Bringing this list right up to date now, let's look at the director who most went the extra mile to hide himself within his own movie in the past year.

David F. Sandberg's Shazam! was probably the most fun, lighthearted movie that has yet been made of a DC Comics property and had no worries about shying away from some of the more wacky and cartoonish aspects of its source material. The final scene, after all, set up the hero's long term comic book nemesis Mister Mind, a genius supervillain in the form of a tiny angry caterpillar.

The scene with the many doors of the Rock of Eternity opened the movie up to a load more references to the weird wider world of Captain Marvel (not that one) comics, not least the presence of the humanoid Crocodile Men from the planet Punkus (Mister Mind's confederates in the Monster Society of Evil). And it is here that Sandberg made his appearance.

The director didn't rely on computer effects for a few seconds of suited crocodile head action, though. No, this is all practical effects and involved Sandberg undergoing hours of makeup, leaving him unable to see and constantly bending his neck so that the prosthetic and animatronic crocodile head sitting over his own head looked like it was facing forwards.

"I'm glad I did it, but I don't want to do it again," was how the director described the experience. So don't expect a repeat performance should there be some expanded crocodile content for Shazam! 2.