‘Aquaman’ Actor Says Original Cut Was Superior, Reshoots Were Not Needed

To date, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” has earned $109 million at the domestic box office and $375 million worldwide — glass half full, that’s better than “The Marvels.”

However, that’s not even half the intake of the original ‘Aquaman’ which earned $1 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing DC Universe film.

Dolph Lundregn is now telling ComicBook.com that a “really good” original cut of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” exists, but it’s not the one that was released in theaters. Is he trying to start a #ReleaseTheWanCut movement? Because I’m not down with that.

I was just disappointed for the moviegoers, because I thought the original script was great and the original cut — I saw a little bit of it, it was really good. So I didn’t see any reason to start reshooting and reshaping the story, which obviously led to disappointment in the moviegoers and not just me.

Didn’t James Wan originally deny the extent of the reshoots? Wan kept downplaying reports, from multiple media, including ours, about the ‘Aquaman 2’ production problems. Wan gave the usual spiel, that he ended up making the movie he wanted to make, etc etc.

Most peculiarly, Wan insistsed 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. Remember Jeff Sneider’s report that around 20 scenes got cut from James Wan’s original version of ‘Aquaman 2’? I’ve always believed that rumor.

Regardless, whether you love or hate DC/Marvel, it’s safe to say that Hollywood is a broken system — the original ‘Aquaman’ was well met by critics, made a billion dollars, but, somehow, its sequel managed to get an inordinate amount of studio interference. Even worse, there was barely proper marketing behind it.

I can’t cover all the drama behind ‘Aquaman 2, that has already been dealt with, numerous times, but it did include reshoots, low test scores, cameos getting cut, multiple endings, release date delays, a skyrocketing budget, and Elon Musk threatening the producers.