Kazaam

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Um... Keep practicing those free throws, Shaq.

The 1996 film where basketball star Shaquille O'Neal plays a rapping genie.

...No, really.[1]

The alleged story is about a kid named Maxwell "Max" Connor (Francis Capra) stumbles into an abandoned building and finds a magic boombox containing Kazaam (Shaquille O'Neal): an actual genie. Naturally, the kid doesn't believe what he sees but Kazaam eventually manages to convince him that he's a legitimate genie that will grant him three wishes. Meanwhile, Alice Connor (Ally Walker) Max's mother is about to remarry and decided to confess that his real father actually lives in the same city as them so Max decides to find him. It turns out his father Nick Matteo (James Acheson) is a musical talent agent who later "discovers" Kazaam. His evil boss finds out Kazaam is a genie and tries to figure out how to claim this power for himself.

The film gained $18,937,262 in the United States market, the 87th most successful film of its year. Critically however, it did nowhere near as well.

Not to be confused with Shazzan which was a cartoon about an heroic genie, or with the similar-sounding Shazam.


Tropes used in Kazaam include:
  1. Shaq's comments about this movie provide the page quote for Money, Dear Boy.