Ultimate Dolph

@creepypuppet James Wan

The tide is rising.

“There's a reason why I don't make three movies in the same series. It'd be lucky to get me to make a sequel. And then after that, I just get bored. I want to do something different.”

So what then is about Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom that made him return to the DCEU?
"I would say the thing that really got me excited to come back to it is finding a story that I think is worthy and if not better than the first movie," Wan said, adding, "And also, for me, really, when I come back to a sequel, whether it was for Insidious 2 or The Conjuring 2, and now Aquaman 2 is I helped shape and create these characters that I eventually fall in love with, and I feel like I'm not done with them yet. So I feel like I owe them one more story from me."

Wan, who is currently in London filming the Aquaman sequel, said he really wanted to come back in order to "continue the next chapter of Arthur Curry's story, and Orm's story, and Mera's story, and Black Manta's story." He credits screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick for "finding a really cool story to bring all these characters back, and then growing them in a big way, and taking them to the next level or the next chapter of their lives."

Beyond the characters, it was the potential of more underwater world-building that kept Wan interested in making another Aquaman film. "The first movie introduced the audience to such a big world that was only scratching the surface. And I feel like I can now dig deep into that and expand on that more," Wan told IGN. "It's when I feel like I no longer have anything else to say, that's what I back away. But right now that's not the case with the Lost Kingdom."

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

BLACK MANTA Back Under Construction! #Aquaman2

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSFTVqUAUSs/

On this July afternoon, the 6-foot-3 actor fiddles with his AirPods and takes a gulp of some healthy-looking green concoction in the kitchen of his London rental before settling in for this Zoom interview. He’s on a rare one-week break during a five-month shoot of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

After making a string of films for the studio, he’s found his rhythm and has several projects in the works, including Miller’s Furiosa and the Aquaman sequel, in which his cutthroat supervillain Black Manta will loom much larger than in the first outing and delve into his alter ego, David Kane.

“I think the script is better than it was in the first one. It gives the actors a lot of good storytelling moments,” he explains. “In Aquaman, we just got a small introduction to Black Manta and to some of his motivations. In this one, I get to exercise and breathe a little bit more. I’m showing some different colors with this one.”