Director James Wan had his choice of two major projects when he first met with Warner Bros. about making a DC movie. The studio had several movies on the slate, but no director attached to movies for Aquaman and the Flash. It’s the kind of choice that might feel impossible to a DC fan, but Wan knew exactly which one he wanted.
“I felt the Flash had been done before,” Wan recently told The New York Times. “It had been on TV twice at that point. The one that had not been done was Aquaman. I realized, wow, his character resides in this crazy, big world, and I could do something very interesting with it.
“I look up to people like Spielberg, Cameron, Lucas, John Carpenter. I’m a fan of genre filmmaking, naturally. So I thought I could make Aquaman a genre film, meaning a horror monster movie. DC basically said, yes, you can make Aquaman versus sea monsters if that’s what you want.”
Aquaman, of course, had appeared in live-action previously on Smallville, but the character was still mostly untouched. His world certainly was, as star Jason Momoa’s appearances in Batman v Superman and Justice League didn’t cover much of Atlantis.
Years (and $260M at the international box office) later, it’s safe to say Wan made the right choice. That’s no knock on the Flash, as he’s an incredible character and we eagerly await his solo film. Aquaman was just the better fit for Wan, who was successful in building an entirely new world while pitting Arthur Curry against scary sea monsters like the Trench.
SOURCE: The New York Times
