The long-awaited trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom debuted yesterday, and honestly, I think it looks pretty great. That said, there are tons of rumors flying around about James Wan’s superhero sequel. What were all of those reshoots about? Has Amber Heard’s role as Mera been reduced? Is Michael Keaton or Ben Affleck returning as Batman? But the bigger mystery is whether this franchise will survive as part of James Gunn’s DCU?
Wan addressed many of these questions recently with EW, beginning with the reveal that Gunn “weighed in” on the film, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Gunn is going to be taking over the entire division, so of course he’d have opinions. But Wan does promise that it is still his movie, done his way.
“I’ve known James since way back, right?” said Wan. “We’re horror guys, and so I’m definitely open to ideas. But, at the end of the day, this is my movie.” But Wan also said the creative shifts within DC indirectly affect his production. “Obviously, I have to be mindful,” Wan continued. “If I’m living in a house, and the house is getting renovated around me, it’s hard for me to not take notice, because the roof, the ceiling’s missing, right? But the beauty of this movie, this “Aquaman” world, is that, very early on, we always said that we are our own separate universe. My goal was always: If we could spin off a Seven Kingdoms universe, that would be my ideal dream. So, what we do, ultimately, doesn’t get affected by all that stuff, all that noise.”
The simple fact of the matter is that any possibility of a third Aquaman movie will depend on how this one performs. Wan doesn’t have any answers, but he does have a very clear plan for Momoa as Arthur Curry that he wants to see play out…
“Oh, buddy, I don’t know. This film has taken up so, so much of my life, so much of my time, all I can think about now is taking a long break…What I like between this one and the first one is, you really do see the growth of Arthur. He starts off as this kind of wanderer, and in the second one he finally has more of a direction of what he wants to do with his life. If and when there is a third one, that’s what it should be; it should be growing these characters because I think we’ve set up certain things in a good place in the second movie that you can definitely draw upon in a third. I don’t have any stories, but growing the characters is the biggest thing that I think the next “Aquaman” movie should be about.”
If you look around you’ll find rumor after rumor saying opposing things about the presence of Batman in ‘The Lost Kingdom’. Some say it’s happening, some say it’s not. As for Wan, he’s not revealing anything…
“That’s a ‘no comment,’ right now. You’re going to have to wait for the movie to come out.”
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opens on December 20th.
