John August, the writer assigned to the movie version of Shazam (see “Shazam! A New Writer!”), has announced that the version he was working on has been deep-sixed (in a post on his blog).  He indicated that he’d done a couple of drafts, including an initial action comedy version, and one that took a darker turn with a bigger role for Black Adam (to be played by the Rock, see “The Rock to Play Black Adam”) after the success of The Dark Knight and the flop of Speed Racer last summer.  But any of the versions based on scripts he wrote are now “dead,” according to his post.