Aquaman 2 Director James Wan Has The Perfect Response To Negative Buzz

The end may be nigh for the DC Extended Universe, but the franchise is still set to go out with one last, splashy bang this winter. Indeed, director James Wan and star Jason Momoa have reteamed for the long-awaited follow-up to 2018's "Aquaman." If the "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" trailer is any indication, it looks like the sequel will be one of the silliest, biggest, and boldest films to come out of the entire DCEU era.

Unfortunately, the conversations surrounding "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" haven't been entirely positive. The early clips that have been released from the film, which promises to bring Wan's campy vibes to a fight for the Seven Seas, have proven to be divisive online. Some fans, meanwhile, have pondered whether or not the death of the DCEU and the forthcoming launch of James Gunn and Peter Safran's new multimedia DC Universe have rendered the "Aquaman" sequel somewhat pointless.

In the face of all of these online discussions, Wan revealed in the December 2023 edition of Empire magazine what the negative buzz surrounding "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" has taught him about the filmmaking process. "That's the biggest thing I've learned from this experience. To filter out the negativity and focus on the film," the director explained (per The Direct). "That's what will live on — in 20 years, no one will remember the noise. Only the movie."

James Wan is no stranger to franchise filmmaking. Over the course of his career, he's not only launched three massive horror franchises by directing the first "Saw," "Conjuring," and "Insidious" films but also dipped his toes into the comic book world of the DCEU and the "Fast and the Furious" series with movies like "Aquaman" and "Furious 7." He isn't inexperienced in dealing with sudden, unexpected difficulties either. Production on "Furious 7" was famously interrupted in 2013 by the death of one of its stars, Paul Walker. Wan, for his part, went on to complete the film, which ends with a heartfelt tribute to Walker.

Taking all of this into account, it's hard to imagine a director more well-suited than him to make "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," the film that has ended up becoming the final installment of the DCEU through nothing more than sheer circumstance. It's also worth noting that "Aquaman" is the highest-grossing DCEU film to date, earning over $1 billion at the box office when it was released in the winter of 2018. It remains to be seen whether or not "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," which hits theaters in the U.S. on December 22, will be able to pull in similarly impressive box office numbers. Still, even if it ultimately falls short of its predecessor's mark, the new film seems primed to send the DCEU out in fittingly over-the-top fashion.