Director finds new life under the sea
James Wan made a fantasy set in dazzling and vast watery world
Just 48 hours ago, James Wan says, he was climbing the steep and winding steps of the Great Wall of China — a relatively relaxing exercise compared with the 14hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week pace he’d been grinding away at for the last three months to cross the finish line with Aqua
man, the sixth film in Warner Bros.’ $3.8-billion (U.S.) DC Extended Universe treasure chest.
Today, thankfully, it’s tea time at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. That means Wan, 41, can take a moment to marvel over the whirlwind journey that’s taken him around the world and back in a matter of days with Aquaman, which, by a very large measure, marks the biggest undertaking of his career.
“Filmmaking — the actual creative filmmaking — is only 40 or 50 per cent of the process of making a movie in Hollywood,” says Wan, ordering a pot of Tahitian vanilla, the soft plinking of a harpist rising above the clinking of china. “The other 50-60 per cent is navigating the big machinery of making these films.”
That journey still has a big hurdle to clear when Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa in a fresh spin on the aquatically gifted DC Comics superhero, opens Friday in the Christmas holiday frame. (It’s already off to a strong start in China, where the film, made for a reported $200 million, has outgrossed all previous DC titles — and most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — in a single week.)
At that point Wan will be able to wind down from the wave he’s been riding for the last 2 1⁄ 2 years.
“When the movie comes out, that’s when I’ll really go, whether people like it or not, ‘It’s out of my hands,’ ” he says with a smile.
The globe-trotting epic adventure, much of which is set beneath the sea among fantastically detailed ocean civilizations, with actors filmed “dry for wet” to create the illusion of being underwater, required an army of crew, artists and technicians to piece together.
Wan estimates that no shot has gone untouched by VFX, hence his insistence on tinkering around the clock until “the teacher basically says, ‘Put your pens down.’ ” Each floating wisp of hair, every spray of bubbles must be perfect, because even the tiny details help maintain the surreal credibility of the impossible world he’s built.
It was only 15 years ago that the Malaysian-born, Australian-grown filmmaker arrived in L.A. toting a seven-minute horror short made for $5,000 with filmmaker buddy Leigh Whannell. From those humble beginnings exploded Saw, the low-budget, $100-million boxoffice horror hit that launched both a franchise and Wan’s career.
The filmmaker has barely paused for breath since, establishing himself as Hollywood’s go-to master of frights as the director and producer behind the Saw, Insidious and Conjuring franchises. He stepped in to helm Universal’s Furious 7, leading a grief-stricken cast and crew to complete the action sequel in honour of Paul Walker after the actor’s death, and set up his own production company, Atomic Monster, at Warner Bros.’ New Line Cinema, continuing his streak of genre success.
And then came the chance to direct Aquaman.
There was plenty to the project that enticed Wan to join Warner Bros.’ DC franchise, which launched with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and the much gloomier Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
“The fact that Aquaman has never been seen on the big screen — you had that one shot of him in Batman vs. Superman — was exciting,” Wan says. “But let’s face it: There are so many superhero movies out there, and it seems like the marketplace is just full of superhero characters and films. If I were to go and make a movie like that, I needed it to feel unique.”
Wan readily says there are certain camp qualities native to the classic Aquaman, writ in the comics as a dashing blond super-merman with a dash of retro fantasy futurism. (HBO’s Entourage famously mocked the superhero and his bigscreen prospects.) The trick, says Wan, was to lean into it.
“He’s a guy that has been made fun of so much,” he says with a laugh. “He’s been the butt of superhero jokes for the longest time. You kind of have to embrace it. That was my pitch from Day 1, and I never strayed from it ... and to the studio’s credit, they left me alone to make the movie I wanted to make.”
Wan’s Aquaman is a superhero origin story with more than a few surprises up its sleeve.
For starters, its primary villain, Arthur’s Atlantean halfbrother Orm (played by frequent Wan collaborator Patrick Wilson), seeks to rally the undersea kingdoms, seize the title of Ocean Master and declare war on humans in retaliation for their rampant pollution of the ocean — and who can really blame him?
Meanwhile, Wan gleefully populates his dazzling and expansive watery worlds with medieval mer-people, gargantuan crab monsters, drumbeating octopuses, and the glorious sight of Dolph Lundgren riding a sea horse.
“I really embraced the more weird and wonderful aspect of it,” he says grinning, devouring a scone.
But after the success of DCEU’s trail-blazing Wonder Woman stand-alone film, Aquaman also brings inclusivity and humanity to Momoa’s Pacific Islander Arthur Curry. Justice League, in which the character was formally introduced in 2017, was “kind of a weekend in Arthur’s life,” says Momoa, speaking by phone from Vancouver. “This is his whole story.”
The son of a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and a rebellious princess of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), beer-guzzling roadhouse regular Arthur is a part-time hero who can talk to fish, breathe underwater and command the oceans.
Having grown up half-human and half-Atlantean, feeling like an outsider in both lands — travelling to the high-tech underwater metropolis of Atlantis, he’s referred to as “halfbreed” by his pale-skinned distant brethren — he’s also quite unsure of his place in the world.
“He’s jaded, more of a loner, not caring about the world as such, but then he realizes he has a greater purpose in life,” says Wan. The roguish hero with a sly sense of humour is also so Jason Momoa, he adds, which is exactly what Aquaman the movie needed.
“When I met him in person, I was like, he’s really funny,” says Wan. “He’s really charismatic. He was very rock ‘n’ roll, in Tshirts and jeans, and I’m like, ‘Dude, this is the side of you I want everyone to see.’ I felt like he had the makings of a movie star, and I wanted to try and bring that out.”
Embracing and celebrating Arthur’s background as a superhero of colour was important to both Momoa and Wan, who cast fellow Aussie Kidman as Arthur’s mother, Atlanna, and New Zealander Temuera Morrison as his father, Thomas.
“Growing up in Australia and having tons of Maori and New Zealander friends, I was kind of familiar with that world,” Wan says.
He even briefly contemplated changing Aquaman’s canonical hometown. “There was a moment when we thought, ‘What if Amnesty Bay is in New Zealand?’ Then, maybe not,” he says with a laugh. “The fans might be upset if we move Amnesty Bay out of New England.”
The specificity makes Aquaman special and, often, surprisingly touching by superhero blockbusters standards.
To represent his own culture onscreen in such a proud and prominent way “was a huge honour,” says Momoa, who made headlines this week leading a haka on the red carpet at Aquaman’s L.A. premiere.
“Even when ( Justice League director) Zack (Snyder) first thought about it, having tattoos, and being Polynesian ... it was awesome to draw upon. I can’t tell you how honoured I am.”
Arthur meets his match in the capable Atlantean warrior princess Mera, played by Amber Heard, who rebels from the warmongering King Orm’s court.
After Aquaman, his ninth feature as a director, Wan isn’t quite sure what he wants to direct next. He might take a break from directing — his “day job,” he jokes — to work on Atomic Monster’s slate of film and TV projects, which include the company’s Swamp Thing television show for DC Universe.
“Aquaman ticks a lot of boxes for me,” he says. “For the longest time I wanted to do a movie that allowed me to do world creation. I didn’t want to make a traditional superhero movie, I wanted to make a fantasy movie.
“I’ll tell you this: When I wear my producer hat, I find myself to be a frustrated director,” he says.
“I’ve got to hold myself back. I’m just the producer.”