With the much-anticipated Aquaman, it’s becoming increasingly clear that director James Wan intends to mold this marine property into his own distinct vision, rather than dutifully delivering a film in the same vein as last year’s Justice League.
The Furious 7 and Conjuring helmsman recently expressed his excitement at working in largely unexplored territory, giving Wan the freedom to establish the tone for the series and flesh out the underwater world of Arthur Curry. Of course, the superhero spinoff will still be obliged to continue in the continuity of Justice League, but even then, Wan managed to prevent Zack Snyder’s critically derided and commercially underwhelming film from introducing one major element of the Aquaman story that Wan wanted to save for himself: Atlantis.
Speaking to Fandango, the director revealed that he specifically requested that Justice League refrained from giving audiences a tour of this sunken city, so that Aquaman’s solo debut had the freedom to do things the way Wan wanted.
“Early on when I was designing the story, and the script, I reached out to DC. I reached out to Zack Snyder as well. I said, ‘Could you guys do me a big favor? Please don’t go to Atlantis. I really wanted my character to go to Atlantis for the first time.’ It was such a big part of the story that I was writing that if they had him go to Atlantis in Justice League, it would unravel my story that I wanted to tell.”
Fortunately for Wan, Snyder adhered to his request, meaning that our introduction to the DCEU’s Atlantis was delayed one movie, but will hopefully be all the better for it.
“Of course, Zack was super cool. He was like, ‘Okay, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t bone you that way.’ So in the movie, that first shot is his first shot. We come to the gate of Atlantis, and that is the first shot we see once we come through the gate of Atlantis.”
With the release of the film’s first trailer, we’re starting to get a pretty good idea of the dazzling and otherworldly visuals that Wan had in mind, and we’ll see if Atlantis can live up to the director’s big plans when Aquaman arrives on December 21st.