Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom director, James Wan, has confronted rumours that Warner Bros. didn't want Amber Heard to be in the film.
Ahead of the release of the film's trailer tomorrow, the director spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the upcoming film, the wider DC universe and the rumours surrounding both.
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Filming the follow-up to Aquaman — a bonafide blockbuster starring Jason Momoa that grossed $1.1 billion (£880 million) around the world — wasn't exactly smooth sailing.
Wan admitted that filming the superhero flick during the pandemic was incredibly difficult.
"Making movies is tough enough, making a massive tentpole film is even harder. Throw on top of that a life-threatening pandemic just takes it to a whole different level," he said.
On top of this, the film hit choppy waters in post-production with three rounds of reshoots as the film got caught in the middle of an executive overhaul at DC Studios, which is now run by James Gunn and Peter Safran.
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The two co-CEOs are spearheading a new DC Universe outside of the one the second Aquaman film was conceived for.
Wan explained: “The tricky thing early on was not knowing whether Aquaman would come out first or come out after [The Flash]. So, we just had to be prepared.
“At the end of the day, the best thing I would say about this movie is that it is not connected in any way to any of those films. That’s the bottom line.”
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The director was also asked about Amber Heard, who plays Mera in the comic book film franchise.
During the highly publicised defamation trial between the actress and her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, she claimed that Warner Bros. 'didn't want to include me' in the Aquaman sequel due to the fallout of her divorce.
She claimed that her role in the sequel was 'pared down' and action scenes were 'taken away.'
However, according to Wan, Mera was never meant to be the focus of the film. Unlike the first film, which came out in 2018, that focussed on Mera and Aquaman, the sequel was always going to prioritise Aquaman's relationship with his villainous half-brother, Orm, played by Patrick Wilson.
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“I always pitched this to everyone from the get-go,” Wan said.
“The first ‘Aquaman’ was Arthur and Mera’s journey. The second movie was always going to be Arthur and Orm. So, the first was a romance action-adventure movie, the second one is a bromance action-adventure movie. We’ll leave it at that.”
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is due to be released in cinemas on 20 December.
Topics: Amber Heard, Aquaman, DC Comics, Film and TV, Jason Momoa
Bec Oakes