Following yesterday’s trailer release for James Wan’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” the director spoke about the sequel and teases that there are future plans in spite of the pending DC Universe reset.
Jason Momoa returns as Arthur Curry/Aquaman in the film, which sees Black Manta wielding the power of the mythic Black Trident, which unleashes an ancient and malevolent force. To stop him, Aquaman will turn to his imprisoned brother Orm to forge an unlikely alliance.
As previously indicated, DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran have plans for Momoa in their new DC Universe. There’s been rumor the actor may be one of the few that gets ‘carried over’ from the pre-existing DCEU, whilst Safran himself previously indicated Momoa saw the “Aquaman” series as a trilogy.
Speaking with Collider, Wan teases that the new film ends in a way that sets things up for more:
“What I can speak to that is that the Jason Momoa as Aquaman story definitely has more places to go. And yes. When we get to the end of this, the answer is yes. I don’t know how to answer that without kind of giving things away.
Because where we go at the end of this movie, it does tee up something bigger, or not bigger, but it does tee up a direction for that story. And I don’t want to speak to that just because it’s the end of the movie. [Laughs]”
The franchise famously scrapped a previously planned spin-off focusing on The Trench, the de-evolved monstrous fish race that Aquaman and Mera encounter at one point in the first film.
Whilst that film isn’t going ahead, Wan was able to crib material from that to incorporate into this. He tells Slashfilm:
“We had developed ‘The Trench’ movie and ultimately, like most things you develop, if they work out, great. If they don’t, then that’s fine as well. We didn’t want that project to potentially step on the Aquaman films.
But we came up with a lot of really interesting ideas and really cool stuff that I felt we can use in this one. With ‘The Trench’ movie, it was going to be a secret Black Manta movie.
Initially, we announced it as a Trench movie, but ultimately we wanted to surprise the fans because that was going to be a standalone Black Manta movie. So when that did happen, some of those ideas kind of found [their] way into this movie.”
Wan adds the film’s aesthetic leans pretty heavily into the 1960s Silver Age comic version of the character. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” will be released in cinemas on December 20th.