Speaking of superhero fatigue … These past few months there’s been some concerning reports about James Wan’s “Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom.”
I can’t cover everything, but some of the red flags included reshoots, low test scores, cameos cut, multiple endings, release date delays, a skyrocketing budget, Jason Momoa drunk on-set, and even Elon Musk threatening the producers.
I haven’t even scratched the surface here. There’s plenty more and it’s already been covered in past articles. I’m hearing the toxic buzz is eating away at this movie’s box-office forecasting. We should be getting early numbers in a few weeks.
Jeff Sneider added more fuel to the fire yesterday on his Hot Mic podcast by claiming that, after the latest test scores, Wan shed a whopping 20 scenes from his original cut:
“I’m told there were twenty scenes cut. Twenty scenes, basically, cut from Aquaman 2, and two of them featured [Amber Heard]. She’s not even in the movie that much, from what I understand.”
Production on “Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom” wrapped over two years ago. It was originally supposed to be released in December of 2022. There have been three rounds of reshoots and it’s been test-screened seven times so far.
Last year, I had been told that Warner boss David Zaslav wasn’t too happy with what he’d seen of ‘Aquaman 2,’ but not to the point of shelving it like he did with “Batgirl.”
The first ‘Aquaman’ grossed nearly $1.2 billion dollars, becoming the highest-earning entry in the DC Extended Universe.