Octopus drummers, snazzy outfits, and the one reason you don't wanna
be the seventh Batman — keep watching for the low-down on Jason Momoa's Aquaman.
Before Aquaman came along, Jason Momoa was best known for playing the role of the barbarian
warlord Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones — as well a less-than-stellar turn as Conan
the Barbarian in a critically derided reboot of that franchise. Basically, the actor had
made a name for himself playing rough, uncouth anti-heroes, rather than kingly superheroes.
When Momoa first got the call from Warner to audition for the DCEU,
he did not imagine for a second that he was being offered the role of Aquaman.
""I'm like, 'I'm just going to basically be the
bad guy. I'm going to fight Batman and Superman. I'm gonna play the villain.'"
But Momoa was soon informed by director Zack Snyder that he would instead be auditioning
to play Aquaman. The actor had a hard time imagining himself as the character
from the comics. However, Snyder, who was a huge fan of Momoa's turn as Khal Drogo,
assured the actor that he would be the right choice to bring Aquaman to the big screen.
On the surface, there seems to be little in common between Jason Momoa and Aquaman. The
character in the comics is very blond and very white, and, in his initial on screen appearances,
totally lighthearted. He's more of a holdover from the Golden Age of comics
than someone who encapsulates the warrior physique and brooding presence of Momoa.
But the actor found he had more in common with Arthur Curry than previously suspected.
Momoa is of Native Hawaiian descent, and aquatic activities were a part
of the actor's life long before Aquaman came calling. In fact, he even has some
real-life experience with a classic Aquaman trick. When he was asked whether he has been
practicing telepathy with sea creatures, Momoa told a crowd at Walker Stalker Con:
"No, but I've rode some dolphins before, so I can pull on that."
Additionally, Momoa has revealed that he had been studying to become a marine biologist before he
decided to take a chance on becoming an actor. But the greatest thing about playing Aquaman
for Momoa was that it allowed him to pay tribute to Polynesian gods. He told Walker Stalker Con:
"Our gods, Kahoali, Maui, all these water gods.
It's really cool and an honor to be playing a [water] character."
Despite enjoying a positive reception after his initial cameo in Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice and his larger role in Justice League, Aquaman still had to prove himself with
a solo movie. Luckily, Momoa had the help of perennial hitmaker James Wan, who was
able to craft Aquaman into a blockbuster movie that fans and critics alike could get behind.
Aquaman was a major departure for Wan, who was better known for his horror movies,
and he chose the character because Aquaman was relatively unknown to
mainstream film audiences at the time. He told Business Insider:
"[The studio] asked me which superhero I would be interested in. I picked Aquaman
because it's the one everyone makes fun of, so there wouldn't be a lot of pressure."
Free of the burden of expectations, Wan was able to craft his own unique
take on the superhero genre. He explained to Vital Thrills:
"My template wasn't other superhero films. My template was more like traditional
adventure-fantasy films or coming-of-age stories, rite of passage and all of that kind of stuff."
Inspired by fantasy films from the '80s, Wan was able to chart a radical narrative for Aquaman's
big-screen debut that feels excitingly different yet comfortingly familiar at the same time.
If you were to ask most actors about their dream DC superhero role,
chances are you're going to hear the word "Batman." Certainly,
few actors would choose Aquaman, who had long been seen as a walking punchline.
"I've got friends coming over tonight!"
"These lobsters walked right up to the door — anyone hungry?"
But Jason Momoa always knew he had the opportunity to do something special with
the character. The actor told The Independent that, when he was hired to play Arthur Curry,
he was given the freedom to interpret the character in a new way "from the ground
up." According to Momoa, he was chosen for the role due to certain personal attributes that
he could transfer to the character, helping to bring Aquaman to life in a compelling manner.
When it was time to make his solo movie, James Wan also encouraged Momoa to continue
to interpret the character in his own way. With so much creative freedom,
maybe it's not surprising that Momoa would prefer to be Aquaman than yet another Batman. He said:
"It's nice not being the seventh Batman. It's
nice to be the first one. And good luck being the next one."
During many superhero debuts, lead actors face the uphill task of making audiences
care about an unknown character. But when Jason Momoa signed on to play Aquaman,
he had an even more difficult task: making the public like a superhero
who had been actively mocked and treated as a joke for decades.
Of course, Zack Snyder and Warner took the right step by casting an actor who
could look badass doing literally anything. Momoa was very aware that
he needed to reinvent Aquaman as a commanding and imposing figure,
which is why he had a strong dislike for a line in Joss Whedon's 2017 version of Justice League.
"I hear you can talk to fish."
Momoa later told EW:
"I'm like, 'Don't put this line in there,
because that's all people are going to talk about. Do you want me to make him cool or not?"
Fortunately, that one-off joke was not enough to
detract from the energy that Momoa brought to the role.
Iconic comic book heroes often have iconic origins, and filmmakers change
those stories at their peril. Aquaman's origin story is less well-known, however,
and filmmaker James Wan made plenty of changes to it while making his 2018 movie.
The most obvious difference is that Aquaman in the comics is blonde-haired,
blue-eyed, and pale, whereas Jason Momoa is of Polynesian descent;
his version of Arthur Curry is shown to be of mixed race. Then there's the fact that,
in the comics, Aquaman is usually depicted as a very serious character who is acutely conscious
of his royal heritage, and his manner of speaking reflects his noble birth.
But in the movie, Arthur is closer to Momoa's real-life personality, a fun-loving dudebro-type
who drinks beer in bars and doesn't take himself too seriously. The details of Aquaman's journey
to becoming the King of Atlantis also turn out much differently than they do in the comics.
2018's Aquaman is sometimes described as a little over-the-top, and the biggest example
of this excess is generally considered to be the fight scene between Arthur and Orm,
in which, among other things, an octopus can be seen playing the drums.
The octopus drummer might seem like a bizarre addition to the movie,
but there are actually a couple of solid reasons for its presence. First of all,
the octopus in the film is inspired by Topo, Aquaman's long-time octopus ally in the comics,
who played a variety of musical instruments. James Wan told The Huffington Post:
"So I'm like, 'OK, how do I take that and bring it into my movie and make it cool?'"
Additionally, Wan saw a drum-playing octopus placed in the middle of the
action as essentially fulfilling the same role as the war-rig guitarist from Mad Max:
Fury Road. He explained to the Metro:
"In that movie there is literally a guitar guy having flames shooting
from his instrument. It doesn't do anything for the narrative. But it creates a really
unique world. That was my goal for [the drum-playing octopus] as well."
"Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!"
One of the things that makes Aquaman better than the average superhero movie is that it
does not wholly revolve around Arthur Curry, but is instead filled with other interesting
characters who make a real impact on the plot. Two such characters are Arthur's parents,
whose relationship with each other and Arthur powers the central narrative of the film.
The role of Arthur's father, Tom, is played by veteran actor Temuera Morrison,
who credits Jason Momoa with getting him the part. Apparently,
Momoa had been inspired by Morrison's role in Once Were Warriors. Morrison told Now To Love:
"Jason saw Once Were Warriors when he was growing up in Iowa, and because his
father's Hawaiian, it really impinged on his cultural consciousness and identity."
Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman agreed to play Queen Atlanna in Aquaman mainly
due to her desire to work with the film's director. She told EW:
"[James Wan is] a really good friend of mine, and he offered to let me play Queen
Atlanna. As soon as he said I could wear mother-of-pearl and be a mermaid warrior,
I said I'm done. Please. If there is one thing I have to do in my life, I have to be that."
The actress saw the role as an opportunity to
"have some fun" while working with a director whom she had long admired.
The character of Aquaman went through a few changes from his classic look while making
the jump to live-action film. But the truth is that Aquaman includes three distinctly
famous looks for Arthur Curry from the comics by featuring them on members of his extended family.
First up is Arthur himself. His look closely resembles the Aquaman from the comics in the '90s,
when the character had long locks, body armor resembling the tattoos from the film,
and a disinclination to wear a shirt. Then there is the classic, bright blonde-haired,
clean-shaven look for Aquaman from the comics, which, in the movie, was given to Orm.
Finally, there's the suit given to Arthur and Orm's ancestor, King Atlan:
the classic green and gold colors of the Aquaman suit from the comics combined with
a royal cloak and a crown. This look closely resembles a much older Arthur
Curry's uniform in Alex Ross and Mark Waid's classic graphic novel series Kingdom Come.
While Arthur Curry and his half-brother, Orm, are the center of the story in Aquaman, fans also
responded well to the supporting villain, Black Manta, who is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.
After Arthur allows Manta's father to die early in the movie, the latter is overcome with the
desire for revenge, and his journey towards vengeance makes for a compelling subplot.
"Kill him and the woman he's with and you will be rewarded."
"Killing him is my reward."
In the comics, Black Manta is one of Aquaman's most famous enemies,
but he almost didn't make the cut when the studio was preparing Aquaman for his first live-action
movie. It was the combined efforts of director James Wan and producer Geoff Johns that kept
Black Manta in the script — and looking just like he does in the comics. Johns told Geeks of Color:
"There was a moment when the script was really going and James texted me or emailed me,
and said Black Manta's story may be too big for this movie. [...] And I didn't reply,
I just went to his office and I said, 'Black Manta has to be in the movie.' He was like, 'I know!'"
Fortunately, Manta did become a part of Aquaman,
and he is expected to appear in the upcoming sequel, too.
A few eyebrows were raised when Jason Momoa was first cast as Aquaman in the DCEU. The
actor proved all the naysayers wrong, however, when he became a
huge fan-favorite and helped score the solo Aquaman movie a billion-dollar gross at the
box office. And now the actor is ready to kick his involvement with the franchise up a notch.
In 2021, while discussing Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on The Drew Barrymore Show,
Momoa revealed that he felt so strongly about the direction the
superhero franchise should take that he came up with a treatment for the sequel.
"We did the first treatment, and then James and our original writer, David,
finished it off, and all of our hearts are in it."
The actor also revealed that he felt much more involved in the project as
a writing partner than he would have if he had simply been following a script.
And however The Lost Kingdom turns out, one thing seems to be certain:
Jason Momoa is going to be sticking with Aquaman for a long time to come.