Anyone who knows me knows I'm an unbashful Aquaman fan. The DC character has been the butt of many jokes ever since the 1960's when he appeared in his own cartoon series and then was featured on Superfriends. Aquaman has been through many interpretations throughout his 70-year run, but Geoff Johns breathed new life into the character when he brought him back from the dead in Brightest Day and also wrote him into The New 52's Justice League, and he got his own comic book series once again.
Warner Bros and DC Entertainment are busy trying to catch Marvel with their own cinematic universe. Jason Momoa from Game of Thrones has been cast to play the King of the Seven Seas in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice coming out next year, with his own film slated for 2018. A few days ago it was announced that Fast & Furious 7 director, James Wan, has now signed on to direct the Aquaman stand-alone film.
Fast & Furious 7 broke box office records, but let's be honest. Most of that hype was due to the tragic death of Paul Walker while filming the movie. Wan, Universal Studios, and the cast handled the situation great and honored Walker's memory perfectly, but Aquaman is a whole different machine. Before F&F, Wan had mainly done horror movies. He started the infamous Saw and Insidious franchises, and while I'm not a horror fan I still appreciate any film maker who creates something that is good enough to start a series. Fast and Furious is also not known for Oscar winning performances and story telling. As the series continues the stunts and plots get more and more ridiculous.
DC characters like Aquaman and Wonder Woman are very mythical. When dealing with worlds like Atlantis and the Themiscrya you need directors who can handle the fantasy aspect, but flesh out the characters to make the movie work. Formerly attached to direct the Wonder Woman movie was Michelle MacLaren, who would have been a good fit with her background working on Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Kenneth Branagh also had a background dealing with Shakespearean stories when he directed Thor, and it helped make the fantasy world of Asgard believable. I have yet to see that kind of talent as a director from James Wan.
Given that Aquaman will be part of a much bigger cinematic world Wan will also have to deal with producers and studio heads throwing in their 2, or even 10, cents into the project Wan will be the captain of. Like all the other WB/DC films set to come out in the next few years, I am hoping for the best but don't have much faith in WB since they put Zach Snyder in charge of the big DC films coming out. I was disappointed with Man of Steel and thought Zach Snyder was the wrong director to reintroduce not only Superman onto the big screen, but the now entire DC Comics universe.
I have yet to see enough of both James Wan and Jason Momoa to see if they have the talent to pull off the epic film Aquaman should be. However, given both their action backgrounds this may be the next step in their careers to not only elevate their reputations, but also Aquaman. And the movie is still three years away. Like mighty rivers and oceans, the DC Cinematic Universe current could change directions by then. Either way, I'll be watching.
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