2023 has been an interesting year for Warner Bros. Discovery, to say the least. While the studio is all but guaranteed to notch Greta Gerwig’s Barbie as the highest-grossing release on its belt, the performance of its subsidiary DC Studios has been, in a word, abysmal.
Whether it be the fact that everyone’s mentally checked out of the studio’s live-action projects until James Gunn’s DCU kicks off in earnest, or just plain old superhero fatigue, a simple fact remains – Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle all tanked. Even the lattermost of those features took a dive, despite a refreshingly good reception from those who bothered to go out and see it.
Which is what has led to the folks over on the DC_Cinematic subreddit to address the elephant in the room right now – What’s the deal with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? Shouldn’t the promotional machine for Jason Momoa’s second solo sea-faring adventure be well and truly spinning up?
At this point in time, Aquaman 2 is still scheduled for release on Dec. 20 this year, just under four months away. And yet, we’ve heard nary a peep from the studio in an effort to start getting the fandom psyched for it.
As respondents to the thread pointed out, it could boil down to any number of reasons. This first and most obvious being, the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes excluding the faces of the film from hyping the movie up by way of red carpets and press junkets. Another theory thrown out was the Amber Heard of it all. With Netflix’s Depp V Heard docuseries recently putting the actress back in the spotlight, now may not be the best time to get the marketing wheels spinning – even if her presence onscreen ends up being all-but-non-existent.
One comment also pointed out that promotion for Shazam! Fury of the Gods got underway around the time of Black Adam’s release late last year, five months before the former’s theatrical debut. That threshold has well and truly passed. However, it is worth noting that a trailer for the Aquaman sequel debuted at CinemaCon back in April, but nothing publicly-facing has surfaced as of yet.
We could well be eating our hats for writing this article in the event that an Aquaman 2 trailer drops tomorrow for all we know, but for the time being, Warner Bros. has been suspiciously quiet about the sequel to the highest-grossing DC Comics adaptation of all-time.
