Highlights
- Many people believe that Sinbad starred in a genie movie called Shazaam in the ’90s.
- The Mandela Effect, where a large group of people collectively believe in something that isn’t true, is often used to explain the belief in Sinbad’s genie movie.
- Sinbad’s children have spoken out against the rumors.
During the ’90s, Sinbad and Shaq both rose to international fame and success. All these years later, Shaq is worth hundreds of millions and Sinbad reportedly only has a fortune in the hundreds of thousands. Despite that and the fact that fans care about what is going to happen to Shaq’s inheritance, many people closely associate Sinbad and the NBA legend.
In 1996, Shaquille O’Neal who was an NBA superstar at the time starred in the movie Kazaam. However, according to a shocking amount of ’90s kids, it was Sinbad who starred in a genie movie with a very similar name.
Sinbad’s Shazaam Movie Is An Internet Conspiracy Theory
For many kids who grew up during the ’90s, there are certain family films they will always love. Some examples of those movies include Space Jam, Mrs. Doubtfire, Hocus Pocus, The Sandlot, Home Alone, Matilda, and Jumanji among others.
On top of those movies, Sinbad starred in several ’90s comedies that many people look back on with fondness. Between Jingle All the Way, Houseguest, and The Meteor Man, Sinbad appeared in several movies that entertained people at the time.
If you ask a surprisingly large group of people who grew up in the ’90s, Sinbad starred in another memorable comedy from that era. In this film that many people insist exists and they have very specific memories of, Sinbad played a genie.
Since there are so many believers in Sinbad’s genie movie, some of them decided to find a home to talk about the film on Reddit. On r/shazaam, there are several posts with hundreds of upvotes that insist Sinbad’s genie movie existed.
Unlike that passionate group of believers, the vast majority of people, Sinbad included, agree that the comedian never starred in a genie movie. After all, no matter how hard fans of the supposed movie search websites like Wikipedia, IMDb, and the underrated Flickchart, there is no evidence the movie was made.
Given that Sinbad never starred in a genie movie, that begs an obvious question that is pretty much impossible to definitively answer. Why are so many people convinced that Sinbad starred in a genie movie?
If you were to ask some people who remember Sinbad’s genie movie, they legitimately are convinced it was a real movie. According to those believers, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that Sinbad’s genie movie exists.
According to most observers of this phenomenon, Sinbad’s genie movie is an example of The Mandela Effect. For those unfamiliar with what that means, The Mandela Effect is when a large amount of people believe the same thing that isn’t true.
The effect gets its name from the people who vividly remember reports that Nelson Mandela passed away in prison during the ’80s. Of course, that example of The Mandela Effect is serious but other examples are more amusing and pop culture-based.
Despite what most people believe, Darth Vader never said “Luke, I am your father”. Another stunning example of The Mandela Effect is the fact that Dorthy from The Wizard of Oz doesn’t say “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore”. Snow White’s Evil Queen never says “mirror, mirror on the wall” and Sinbad didn’t star in a genie movie.
If you ask a lot of people, Sinbad fans are mixing up Sinbad with Shaq who starred in Kazaam. However, many believers insist that they aren’t making that mistake since the Sinbad movie they remember was titled Shazaam instead.
Those same fans argue they can’t be mixing up Shaq and Sinbad since they remember both movies. According to what they claim, Shaq’s Kazaam and Sinbad’s Shazaam are an example of two movies with similar plots that came out at the same time.
In 2015, a website called The New Statesman published an impressive piece documenting the history of the Sinbad genie movie. According to that article, the first notable mention of the supposed movie on the internet stems from a 2009 Yahoo! Answers post. When a user asked if anyone remembered the movie in 2009, nobody did.
The New Statesman reports that another person asked about the non-existent film two years later and didn’t get any traction again. However, all that changed after a 2015 Vice article inspired the creation of the r/MandelaEffect subreddit. “It was there, just a few hours after the article was posted, that discussions of Shazaam – or the “Sinbad Genie movie” – took off.”
Based on The New Statesman’s reporting it is unclear if the creation of r/MandelaEffect inspired people to believe in Shazaam. Alternatively, that subreddit could have simply given believers an initial place to gather. Either way, it seems very clear that Sinbad’s Shazaam is a perfect example of The Mandela Effect as most observers believe.
What Does Sinbad Think Of Rumors He Starred In A Genie Movie?
During Sinbad’s career, the comedian and actor accomplished a lot he can be proud of. With that in mind, it could be easy to see why he could be annoyed if loads of people remember him best for a genie movie he never starred in.
Unfortunately for Sinbad, there is another reason why he could resent the genie rumors. According to what Sinbad’s two children told NBCLX, they have people bothering them about the Shazaam rumors.
As Sinbad’s son Royce Adkins told the outlet, “People the closest to us who know everything about our family” have questioned if the movie exists. Sinbad’s daughter Paige Bryan has been very frank about her Sinbad genie movie frustrations. As Bryan bluntly stated, Shazaam “did not happen” and believers need to “get over it”
Given what his children have said about Shazaam, it makes sense that Sinbad spent years arguing the genie movie doesn’t exist. In a 2016 tweet, Sinbad gave believers a strong argument against the film’s existence.
“Have you noticed no one my age has seen this so called Sinbad Genie movie, only you people who were kids in the 90’s. The young mind !”
Despite initially arguing against the believers in Shazaam, Sinbad eventually seemed to have a change of heart. In 2017, Shazaam blew people’s minds by starring in a fake trailer for Shazaam that was released on April Fool’s Day. Clearly, Sinbad was having fun with the situation by that point.
Source: NewsFinale
