LIGHTS, CAMERA, AQUAMAN
Filming starts on Hollywood blockbuster
suzanne.simonot@news.com.au THE Gold Coast’s latest blockbuster movie has begun – without its star.
Aquaman director James Wan took to Twitter yesterday afternoon to announce cameras have officially begun rolling on the $300 millionplus Hollywood epic, the latest in a string of big-budget movies to film on the Coast.
“Months of intensive prep have led to this. Here we go. #DayOne #Ahab,” he captioned his post, accompanied by a picture of one of the film’s elaborate sets inside Sound Stage 6 on the lot at Village Roadshow Studios.
Billed as a “swashbuckling high seas adventure story” in the spirit of Romancing the Stone and Raiders of the Lost December 2018 (US). James Wan
Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder and Charles Roven
Jason Momoa (Aquaman), Amber Heard (Mera), Willem Dafoe (Nuidis Vulko) Arc, the DC Comics romp will film on the Gold Coast and in Sicily, Italy.
Jason Momoa, who stars as Aquaman, wasn’t on set for the first day of principal photography – he flew back into Brisbane yesterday after a brief trip home before production begins.
The Hawaiian actor will film his first scenes on set as the King of the Seven Seas at the studios today, most likely indoors.
In a recent interview with GQ magazine, Momoa said he was excited at the prospect of making the role of Arthur Curry/Aquaman his own.
“We’ve never really seen anything from this guy before, so it’s fun to have a level playing field,” he said.
“There aren’t like four Aquamans before me. I get to set the tone for it.”
Aquaman’s all-star cast includes Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren and Temuera Morrison.
The movie will focus on Aquaman as a reluctant ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis who is caught between land dwellers that are always polluting the globe and his own people who are ready to invade the surface.
“The guy was never really accepted on land, and he was never really accepted in Atlantis,” Momoa told GQ.
“He’s a half-breed. But he’s the best of both worlds. He just doesn’t know how to handle his powers.”
Hundreds of construction crew have been hard at work – some of them for months – designing and building elaborate sets for the film.