As you may recall, the DCEU is getting a bit of a makeover. By “makeover,” we mean “massive overhaul.” Black Adam 2 probably ain’t happening. Henry Cavill is out as Superman but may play another character. Not even Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, one of the comic movie wing’s most popular character, is safe. There are rumors that, like Cavilll, Momoa may be assigned to another superhero. And yet here’s Momoa himself, averring that he’s not done with the aquatic hero, maybe.
Momoa is at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where’s he’s promoting Deep Rising, an environmentalist documentary he narrates about organizations allegedly extracting metals for the deep sea floor. It’s a serious subject — but of course he was asked about comic book movies, and the big shakeup instigated by new DCEU honchos James Gunn and Peter Safran.
“I’ll always be Aquaman. Ain’t anyone coming in there and taking s*it,” Momoa declared, as per Variety. “There might be some other characters, too. I can play other things, too. I can be funny and savage and charming.”
His statement is a bit cryptic. Maybe he means he’ll “always be Aquaman” in a more spiritual way, like how Christian Bale will always be Batman, in a sense. Or maybe Gunn and Safran aren’t going to deep six a character whose first solo outing made a gazillion bucks, though they may have him doing double duties inside the DCEU.
Momoa also discussed his role in creating the story for the forthcoming Aquaman sequel. “The beautiful thing [about Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom] is me and my partner wrote the first treatment for it and it was about a 55-page treatment, and a lot of it has to deal with me talking to the U.N. about what’s happening with the melting ice caps,” Momoa explained. “There’s no far off galaxy coming to destroy us or aliens from another place. It’s us ruining our planet. We need to get it together and save our home.”
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters on December 25, 2023. Hopefully it makes another gazillion dollars so Momoa and his watery biceps can stick around.
(Via Variety)