Kazaam (/kəˈzæm/) is a 1996 American musicalfantasycomedy film directed by Paul Michael Glaser, written by Christian Ford and Roger Soffer based on a story by Glaser, and starring Shaquille O'Neal as the title character, a 5,000-year-old genie who appears from a magic boombox to grant a 14-year-old boy three wishes.
The film was released on July 17, 1996, grossing $18.9 million on its $20 million budget, making it a box-office bomb, and was also panned by critics.
Plot
In the story, a wrecking ball demolishes an abandoned building, causing a magic lamp inside to fall onto a boombox. The genie inside, named Kazaam, decides to reside in the boombox. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old boy named Max Conner goes to school and faces various challenges. He deals with bullies who retaliate against him for a failed robbery attempt. Max seeks refuge in the abandoned building and accidentally releases Kazaam from the boombox. Kazaam becomes Max's genie and demonstrates his powers before disappearing.
Max notices his father during his journey home and discovers that his mother plans to marry a fireman named Travis O'Neil. Max resents Travis and confronts his mother about hiding the truth about his real father's whereabouts. Determined to find his father, Max encounters Kazaam again, who pesters him into making a wish. Max eventually reunites with his father, Nick Matteo, a musical talent agent involved in unauthorized music. Although Max initially doesn't care about his father's profession, he is happy to see him and is introduced to the employees of Nick's agency.
Max shares the news with Kazaam and they have a bike race in Max's hideout, where Kazaam showcases his powers. Kazaam persuades Max to make his first wish, causing junk food to rain from the sky. Max realizes that he has control over Kazaam until he uses his last two wishes. They visit Max's father again and attend a show where Kazaam's genie abilities impress Malik, the nightclub owner who desires to control Kazaam.
Kazaam stays at Max's home, pretending to be his tutor. Max confides in Kazaam about his strained relationship with his father, and Kazaam shares a rap about his own genie origins. Max tries to wish for his parents to rekindle their love, but Kazaam cannot grant this wish since he is not a djinn.
Later, Max witnesses his father being attacked by Malik and his hitmen over a stolen master tape, which Max was pressured into by his bullies. Max seeks help from Kazaam, who hesitates due to his newfound success as a rapper. Max uses his second wish to conjure a replacement tape, causing a rift between him and Kazaam. Max's father confronts him about the stolen tape, leading to their separation.
That night, Max is kidnapped by Malik, who takes control of Kazaam's boombox. Max's father is also held captive. Malik forces Kazaam to do his bidding, but Kazaam breaks free and defeats Malik and his minions. Kazaam transforms Malik into a basketball and dunks him into a garbage disposal. However, Kazaam discovers Max's lifeless body and regrets not being able to grant Max's wish for a second chance with his father.
In his grief, Kazaam becomes a djinn, granting him the power to bring Max's father back to life. Kazaam saves Max and carries him out of the burning building, where Travis rescues them. Max's father expresses his desire to rebuild their relationship before leaving with the authorities. Kazaam, now a djinn, walks away, facing the lighthearted annoyance of his new girlfriend, who pressures him into getting a job, while unaware of the concept of a job. Max watches Kazaam walk away with a smile.
The film's origins began with director Paul Michael Glaser taking his son to the NBA All-Star game, when an acquaintance, who was on Shaquille O’Neal’s management team, called and asked if his son would like to meet him.[3] After saying yes, the acquaintance asked, in passing, if he knew of any film roles for Shaquille to which Glaser replied, ‘He should play a genie.’ Which laid the foundation for what would become Kazaam.[3] In a very short time, Glaser took Kazaam to Warner Bros. as they had the Michael Jordan project Space Jam, and Glaser also went back to Interscope Communications, where he had already done two pictures.[3] Glaser had to have a screenplay and a green light in ten and a half weeks, or he wouldn’t be able to make the movie as Shaquille had to go back to basketball camp.[3] The script was written in six and a half weeks with production commencing after ten before going into Turnaround where it was acquired by Disney.[4][3]
On Rotten Tomatoes, Kazaam has an approval rating of 5% based on 37 reviews and an average rating of 2.82/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Crafted from a mix of genre clichés, Kazaam doesn't know what kind of film it wants to be, and Shaq's larger-than-life charisma is stifled by rote filmmaking and an unimaginative story."[5] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 24 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[6] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on scale of A+ to F.[7]
Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars, writing: "Shaq has already proven he can act (in Blue Chips, the 1994 movie about college basketball). Here he shows he can be likable in a children's movie. What he does not show is good judgment in his choice of material. [...] the filmmakers didn't care to extend themselves beyond the obvious commercial possibilities of their first dim idea."[8]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded the film one star and described the film as "the kind of project someone probably told Shaq would sell to kids. It's marketing, not moviemaking."[9]
Shaquille O'Neal's performance in the film was considered poor and has since been referenced in a number of movies,[10] mainly either criticizing his acting or gloating about it. The film grossed $18.9 million against a $20 million production budget.[citation needed] In a 2012 interview with GQ magazine O'Neal said, "I was a medium-level juvenile delinquent from Newark who always dreamed about doing a movie. Someone said, 'Hey, here's $7 million, come in and do this genie movie.' What am I going to say, no? So I did it."[11]
Shazaam
The nonexistent film Shazaam has been alleged by many online, including on Reddit, to have starred Sinbad (pictured) as a genie.
Imagine if you woke up this morning and Disney’s 1998 animation A Bug's Life did not exist. After endlessly scouring the internet, you’d come up with nothing, despite your own distinct memories of a bunch of ants going on wild hijinks through the undergrowth. You’d turn to your best friend, your brother, your mum, and say, “Hey, remember A Bug’s Life? It was about ants”, and your friend/brother/mum would turn to you and says: “No, darling. You’re thinking about Antz.”
This is how those who believe in the “Sinbad genie movie” feel when people say they are simply getting confused about Shaq’s Kazaam. Twin films – remarkably similar movies that are released at the same time – are relatively common.
Many people falsely remember a similar 1990s film titled Shazaam, starring comedian and actor Sinbad as a genie. However, no such film ever existed, and it is possible people are misremembering Kazaam as the aforementioned film.[13] Sinbad denied having ever starred in Shazaam on Twitter.[14] One theory for the belief in Shazaam is that Sinbad wore a genie costume while introducing the 1977 film Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger on TNT in 1994.[15][16] In addition, in 1960s, Hanna-Barbera had an animated series about a genie called Shazzan.[17]
The earliest online reference to Shazaam dates to 2009, when an anonymous Yahoo! Answers user made a post asking other users if they remembered a 1990s movie starring Sinbad as a genie, finding no success in finding others who shared their memories. Isolated incidents of Internet users asking about the movie would pop up over the next years: In 2011, Reddit user /u/MJGSimple made a post likewise asking users about the movie, and recalled its title to be "Shazaam", although they were not certain about its title. On 11 August 2015, Vice News published a story discussing the Berenstain Bears and its relation to the Mandela Effect, which helped popularize the r/MandelaEffect Reddit community, where users flocked to discuss Shazaam. Afterwards, discussions of the alleged Sinbad film sharply rose in prominence.[12]
As an April Fools' Day prank in 2017, CollegeHumor released a parody VHS trailer for Shazaam starring Sinbad, in which he plays a genie who gets released from his lamp by two children, Rachael and James.[18][19] After images of Will Smith as the Genie in the 2019 live-action adaptation of the 1992 film Aladdin were released, Internet users compared his appearance to what Sinbad supposedly looked like in Shazaam.[20]
