HE DIDN’T KNOW IT AT FIRST, BUT JAMES WAN’S AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM WOULD BE THE DCEU’S FINAL FILM. THE DIRECTOR TALKS NAVIGATING CHOPPY WATERS, AND GOING FOR BROKE WITH HIS DRUMMING OCTOPUS

WORDS TOM ELLEN

Black Manta is out for revenge.

Orm with a Ray Harryhausen-inspired Octobot

Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his devastating weapon, the Black Trident

‘Buddies’ Orm and Aquaman

Director James Wan on set with Patrick Wilson (Orm)

OVER ICED TEA and tortilla chips at a Bel-Air hotel, James Wan is talking Empire through arguably the most significant scene in Aquaman. The one sequence, the director says, “that really cemented in people’s minds exactly what the film was all about.”

Is Wan perhaps referring to the emotional moment when our titular hero, played by Jason Momoa, reunites with his long-lost mother Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman)? Or maybe the heart-thudding climax in which Momoa’s aquatic vigilante finally wields King Atlan’s legendary trident to become ruler of all seven seas? Guess again. In fact, he’s talking about a six-second shot of an octopus playing the bongos.

“Yeah, Topo the octopus is pretty beloved from just that one tiny scene,” laughs Wan of the tentacular tub-thumper that launched a thousand GIFs upon Aquaman’s 2018 release. “I think when people saw that shot — an octopus playing the drums — they were like, ‘Okay — I get what this movie is. They’re embracing the absurdity of the comic books. They’re not afraid to just have fun.’”

Five years ago, “fun” was precisely what the DC Extended Universe needed. 2013’s Man Of Steel had set the franchise’s bleakly realistic tone, channelling post-9/11 paranoia and showing us Superman handcuffed in interrogation rooms or brutally snapping enemies’ necks. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice picked up the dark-and-dour baton and ran with it, alienating critics and audiences alike, and by the time the lumpen first iteration of Justice League arrived in 2017, there was already a sense that this particular extended universe was imploding.

Then came Aquaman. When Wan’s movie surfaced, in a blaze of surrealist sub-aqua colour, it felt like a breath of fresh, erm, seawater. Largely unmoored from the previous DCEU outings, the movie shone a spotlight on Momoa’s hard-drinkin’ wisecrack-disseminator Arthur Curry and his spectacular sunken kingdom of Atlantis, its cities teeming with giant crabs, skyscraper-sized krakens and cephalopod percussionists. The film was, as its director proudly states, “an old-school action adventure — a swashbuckling pirate movie”. It was big, bold and unapologetically silly — and audiences lapped it up. To this day, it remains the DCEU’s most commercially successful outing, having notched up $1.148 billion globally.

On release, it seemed like a potential defibrillator for a flailing franchise. Five years later, its sequel arrives as that franchise’s final breath. The combined effects of a high-profile DC regime change and endless schedule rejigging means that Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom will now represent the DCEU’s closing chapter, ahead of new bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran relaunching the whole shebang as the ‘DCU’ next year. There have been reports about Lost Kingdom’s supposedly ‘troubled’ production — rumblings of costly reshoots, disgruntled actors, internal conflict bubbling away throughout the shifting studio dynamics. Yet amid all the gossip and uncertainty, Wan has remained focused on making this second film bigger, bolder and unapologetically sillier than its predecessor. How on Earth to achieve that after the eye-popping weirdness of the first Aquaman? A squid playing the xylophone? A cuttlefish on cowbell? A duck-billed platypus with a didgeridoo?