If I’m ‘Aquaman 2’ director, James Wan, and Warner Bros, I try to downplay all the toxic reporting on the sequel, as much as possible. That’s exactly what they’re trying to do.
In an Empire Magazine interview, via The Playlist, Wan attempts to downplay reports, from multiple media, including ours, about the ‘Aquaman 2’ production problems. Wan gives the usual spiel, that he ended up making the movie he wanted to make, etc etc.
Most peculiarly, Wan insists that there were only “seven to eight days” of reshoots on the sequel, which seems odd, given all the reports that had come out indicating that it was much more extensive than that.
“We probably did seven or eight days,” he says of the number of reshoot days the production shot, “which is nothing for a movie of this size. It was just spread out because it’s so hard to get your actors back once you’ve finished the initial shoot.”
“I’ve had to learn to be more zen in dealing with all the noise around me, for sure. I’m a pretty private person. I don’t get on social media and have fights, but it’s difficult because this narrative has emerged that is not the reality. The noise is fun to write about, and it gets clicks, but people don’t know the truth. Look, I’m a collaborative filmmaker — I welcome people’s thoughts and opinions, but ultimately, I feel I have more than proven myself. So, it was like: ‘This is the movie I want to make.’”
The number of reshoots will be denied by Wan and company. There seems to be no point in asking. What I would really want to ask Wan is if the reports are true that star Jason Momoa showed up drunk on the set of ‘Aquaman 2’ dressed up as Johnny Depp. Now, THAT is a story.
I had previously reported on the catastrophic production of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and then THR, Variety and others joined in on this story with more in-depth reporting.
It all started after ‘Aquaman 2’ received terrible test scores last year. Then reshoots occurred, with rumors saying there were three rounds of them, and then the film kept getting test-screened, over and over and over. On last count, there have been seven test-screenings of ‘Aquaman 2.’ This is really unheard of.
Principal photography on the film began in London on June 28, 2021, and wrapped in January 2022. After multiple release date changes, which included December 16, 2022, and March 17, 2023, Warner Bros finally settled on a December 25, 2023 launch for this DCEU movie.