Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has been the talk of Hollywood lately, and for good reason. After his captivating performance as the villain in Aquaman, he went on to star in critically acclaimed projects such as Us, The Handmaid’s Tale and Black Mirror. Recently, it’s been announced that he’ll team up again with Jordan Peele for the spiritual sequel to Candyman and on top of that, he’s set to star in HBO’s upcoming series Watchmen and also The Matrix 4.
While we’re happy for his well-deserved success, Abdul-Mateen II’s extremely busy schedule has had some fans worrying that he won’t be able to reprise his role as Black Manta in Aquaman 2. Thankfully, he put those concerns to bed in a recent interview, where he said the following:
“Aquaman 2 is happening! It is happening, and we can look for that, I believe, in 2022. So I’m excited to be part of that. Black Manta will be back, and hopefully, he’ll be causing a lot more trouble than he did in the first one.”
And thank goodness for that. Honestly, the movie just wouldn’t feel the same without the unscrupulous technological bad guy, and he’ll be joining Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson and Nicole Kidman as the original cast members who are returning for the second installment. As for the newcomers, no one’s been announced just yet, but we imagine it won’t be long before the casting process kicks off.
Though there was initially some underlying fear that Black Manta wouldn’t return for the sequel, the post-credits scene for Aquaman did tease another appearance for the titular superhero’s adversary. If you’ll recall, having just been rescued from a near-death experience by Atlantis theorist Dr. Stephen Shin, Manta looked hungry for some revenge against the aquatic king.
And now, we know that Abdul-Mateen II will be back and while we don’t know exactly how he’ll factor into things just yet, we can’t wait to see how his character tries to defeat Momoa’s hero when Aquaman 2 premieres on December 16th, 2022.