Busy building his cast for his first foray into superhero territory with Shazam!, Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg has locked down a key part of it: Asher Angel will play Billy Batson.
The teenage character is the young man who can transform into adult superhero Captain Marvel by saying the magic word "Shazam!", which grants him the powers of six mythological gods (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury, hence the word).
Zachary Levi is on to play the grown hero, while Mark Strong is in talks to be villain Dr. Silvana. Grace Fulton, meanwhile, will be one of Billy's friends. And then there's Dwayne Johnson, who has been signed to play Marvel's nemesis/occasional antihero Black Adam for a while, but appears to be sitting out this film in favour of developing his own spin-offs.
Sandberg is gearing up to start filming early next year for a planned April 2019 release. Angel is more normally found on the Disney Channel's Andi Mack show, but he has been looking to break into films and this should provide a big opportunity.