Wan Talks Making AQUAMAN Without Being Beholden To A Shared Universe

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A frequent topic lately has been the way DC Entertainment seems to be allowing its filmmakers to pick and choose which elements they want to keep from the established DCU cinematic canon, and which ones they wanted to discard, in the wake of the studio moving away from how interconnected things were leading up to Justice League. Yesterday, we discussed how Wonder Woman 1984 seems to rewrite some of what was established in the previous film in that series, and today there’s some intriguing words from James Wan about Aquaman.

“It was very important for me early on to be allowed to make my own film and to have my own voice be in there,” Wan told ComicBook.com. “After Furious 7 and Conjuring 2, I didn’t want to be a director for hire. After Furious 7, that’s kind of who I was to some degree. But after that, I don’t want to be that guy again. So, it was very important for me to be able to bring my own stamp, my own visual aesthetic, create the characters.”

He went on to discuss the fact that despite Aquaman being introduced in two prior DC films, he approached the character with a fresh set of eyes.

“Even though Jason [Momoa] has somewhat been established in Justice League, I wanted to bring his character into this, basically, fresh in a lot of ways. So it was important for me to obviously pay a respect to where he was left off in [Justice League], but then allow me the freedom to take him to where I want to take him at the end of the movie,” Wan said of the creative liberties he was allowed to take. “My hero goes on this hero’s journey to become someone very different than where he started. That was something that was very important for me. But the movie I want to make, that I was allowed that freedom to do that.”

The Aquaman director generally seems very relieved to not have to worry about the rest of Arthur’s Justice League buddies.

“The good thing about not necessarily involving the other characters, I can kind of do whatever I want in this story, in this world, and not be beholden to what somebody else is making,” the Aussie director shares, before adding that it works both ways. “And vice versa, not have someone else be beholden to what I’m doing. What I’m doing is very circular to the world of Aquaman.”

Speaking of the “world of Aquaman,” it sounds like the director really let his imagination run wild on this movie.

“I definitely got to create a massive part. I really think what has been really fun, and I think for moviegoers, not just the fans, is when they see this film, they’re not just seeing a world of DC,” he reveals. “They’re literally seeing a world within Aquaman itself. Just within the world of Aquaman, just creating the different kingdoms, like the different world, the machines that drive the world. They transport the animals that live in this underwater world and all that stuff,” Wan says. “So I’ve never made a movie that is so heavily designed to this extent, and it was really awesome just being able to come up with really interesting things, and just run with it. And when the film comes out, I think you’re going to see how crazy big it is.”

It truly sounds like Wan was kid in a candy store with this movie, getting to make his Aquaman movie his way.

We can’t wait to see what he’s come up with when Aquaman rides a shark into theaters on December 19!

SOURCE: ComicBook.com