An extensive new article on the making of James Wan’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” has gone into the sequel’s production, which sounds rather exhausting.
According to THR, the film is coming off its third round of reshoots which took place in mid-June in New Zealand and involved stars including Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson, according to multiple sources for the outlet.
The film has faced difficulties in part due to the regime changes at Warner Bros. Pictures. The film, greenlit in the Toby Emmerich/Walter Hamada era, wrapped its main shoot in January 2022. A few months later both execs were gone following the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
Test screenings reportedly began last summer and the results were allegedly uninspiring enough the film underwent reshoots. New Warners film bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy got involved with Abdy in particular helping on a cut last Fall.
The trouble is, that version reportedly tested lower than the previous one which led to more reshoots and the issue of ‘story clarity’ being the main concern cited.
Another issue was Batman. Michael Keaton shot a scene, then Ben Affleck joined a round of reshoots to replace Keaton in the scene, and now the latest cut of the film features neither version of the character as DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran are not wanting to tie the film down to a past or future DC universe.
Further test screenings were held, with Gunn weighing in on the most recent cut. A further five-day shoot reportedly went so well that Wan got what was needed in four days.
The film was greenlit at a $205 million budget, and the reshoots have understandably raised that overall budget, though the final amount isn’t known at this time.
The project, releasing in December, marks the final movie of the DC Extended Universe that launched with “Man of Steel” a decade ago.
Source: THR
