James Wan Cut an 'Aquaman' Scene Because it Was Too 'Weird'
Aquaman has a reputation for being one of the quirkier superheroes to grace the comic book pages, and the new standalone DCEU flick featuring Arthur Curry has certainly embraced that portrayal (hey there, great white shark army). But according to director James Wan, there was one scene in the film's original script that took things a bit too far in the weirdness department.
In an interview with Collider, Wan said that he was proud of how filmmakers "weren't afraid to go there" in addressing the inherent absurdity in Aquaman's (Jason Momoa) story, and tried to "have fun with it." But Wan admitted that one "really quirky out-there [sequence]" from writer Will Beall's initial screenplay was so odd, the director had to step in and tell Beall, "I don’t know if we can have that in there, that’s a bit weird."
Here's how Wan described the scrapped scene to Collider:
Aquaman has been apprehended by King Orm and he’s been thrown into this dungeon. Like this really awful prison deep in Atlantis. He ends up starting a prison riot, where all the guards are sharks. … [A]nd he kills one of the shark guards and the shark starts bleeding and then that starts a feeding frenzy among all the other shark guards. It just went nuts. We’re talking like clouds of blood billowing everywhere and he uses that to escape. I was like “Holy crap, I don’t know if I can do that.”
While that certainly would have been an entertaining sequence for audiences, Wan is absolutely right that it's also totally bonkers. And in a movie where the hero can communicate telepathically with marine life, there's already enough weirdness to go around.
Initial reviews for "Aquaman" have been mixed, but audience anticipation seems to be at an all-time high. We have a feeling that fans will be satisfied, even without a shark prison bloodbath.
"Aquaman" swims into theaters on December 21.
[via: Collider]