10 DC Villains To Watch Out For In 2019 On Film & TV
9. Doctor Sivana - Shazam
Warner Bros.
The trailer for Shazam! took everyone by surprise when it released online earlier this year, departing from the dark and dower tone of DC films gone by, and instead electing to spotlight a story and character that speaks to the inherent optimism found within most DC stories.
That doesn't mean the story of Billy Batson is all sunshine and lightning bolts however. The kid actually has some pretty sinister villains, and the main one - Doctor Sivana - is set to feature in the upcoming movie, played by Mark Strong. Strong previously played Hal Jordan's arch nemesis Sinestro in Green Lantern, and ended up being one of the few redeeming features of that film, but seeing as how a new Green Lantern movie looks like a distant prospect, utilising him in Shazam seems like the better option.
Introduced in 1939, Doctor Sivana is oft considered to be the world's wickedest scientist, and very much falls into the bracket of a stereotypical mad Frankenstein-esque fogure. Given the tone Shazam! is aiming for though, that can only be a good thing, and we can expect Strong to give his all to make it work.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
