James Wan Aquaman

Coming off ‘Furious 7,’ it should come as no surprise that director James Wan (‘The Conjuring 2′,’Insidious: Chapter 2’) would pick an epic tentpole movie like ‘Aquaman‘ to do but when he signed on, that wasn’t what he was hoping for. In fact, with Aquaman’s history for audiences, Wan felt that this would be a largely overlooked movie and that he could have some creative fun without everyone wanting to know every minor detail about the film. The movie took home $72.1 million over the opening weekend in North America which was well below ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Justice League’ but still not too bad considering it had earned back the production costs before even opening here.

With that in mind, the director had originally thought things would go much differently:

“They asked me which superhero I would be interested in, and I picked Aquaman because it’s the one everyone makes fun of, so there wouldn’t be a lot of pressure. I’ll go and make this movie under the radar — no one is going to care. Fast-forward, and there’s just this massive spotlight on it.”

Unfortunately for Wan, ever major superhero these days are under a microscope with fandom at an all-time high. ‘Justice League‘ had bombed at the office but all eyes would be on ‘Aquaman’ even if it hadn’t after the performance which Jason Momoa had delivered. ‘Aquaman’ would have to continue what had worked in ‘Justice League,’ but after it failed to met expectations, it instead was looked at to see if the success of ‘Wonder Woman’ could be replicated with another stand-alone film.

So far, responses have been mixed at best.

Do you think James Wan was kidding himself that ‘Aquaman’ wouldn’t be watched by every major media outlet and fan out there? Would this have been as big of a deal for him had ‘Justice League’ been a hit? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

‘Aquaman’ is treading water in local theaters right now!

Source: Cinema Blend