James Wan’s Aquaman is set to make a big splash this weekend, but according to him things could have gone in a very different direction. While speaking with The New York Times, Wan revealed that he wasn’t just offered Aquaman, but he had the chance to direct The Flash, and had to make a choice as to which one he would take.
Obviously, Wan didn’t choose The Flash. That film remains in limbo with John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein apparently still on board…I think? Wan gave his reasons for turning the speedster’s film down, and it boils down to an opportunity to do something that had never been done before…
“Having made ‘The Conjuring,’ I was part of the Warner Bros. family, and I knew they were doing their DC thing. I spoke with Kevin Tsujihara [the Warner Bros. chairman and chief executive] at a premiere and I said, ‘I’m interested in the properties that you have at DC.’ A few months later, I was in a general meeting with DC and they floated two properties that didn’t have filmmakers on board: the Flash and Aquaman.”
He continued…
“I felt the Flash had been done before. It had been on TV twice at that point. The one that had not been done was Aquaman. I realized, wow, his character resides in this crazy, big world, and I could do something very interesting with it. I look up to people like Spielberg, Cameron, Lucas, John Carpenter. I’m a fan of genre filmmaking, naturally. So I thought I could make ‘Aquaman’ a genre film, meaning a horror monster movie. DC basically said, yes, you can make Aquaman versus sea monsters if that’s what you want.”
I don’t want to say he made the right move because there’s a good chance Wan could’ve had a Flash movie done already, and it might’ve been awesome. But I do know that Aquaman is here now and DEFINITELY is awesome, so we’re all the better for the choice he made.
