Trivia / Aquaman (2018)

• Actor-Shared Background: Aquaman is established to be the son of a white Atlantean mother and a Polynesian Maori father. Jason Momoa is mixed race in real life just like his character.
• All-Star Cast: There's no shortage of names here. The cast ranges from modern stars (Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Ludi Lin) to Hollywood veterans (Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren, Willem Dafoe, Djimon Hounsou, Graham McTavish and, surprisingly, Julie Andrews).
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • The reason Nicole Kidman agreed to play Atlanna (Aquaman's mother) was that she's friends with fellow Aussie James Wan and has vocally supported his career since Saw and after he described the role to her, she thought it would be fun.
  • When Julie Andrews was offered a part in the movie, she said yes as soon as her agent described what the part was. Notably, this was the reason why she turned down a Remake Cameo in Mary Poppins Returns.
  • Temuera Morrison's performance in Once Were Warriors was a big influence on Jason Momoa's decision to get into acting, and he strongly pushed for Morrison to be given the role of Thomas Curry.
• Billing Displacement: Randall Park gets supporting cast billing in the Creative Closing Credits in spite of only appearing in two very short scenes in the whole film. If it wasn't for the mid-credits scene, his first appearance would've been a Mythology Gag with how brief it is.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Minor one with Aquaman, who's introduced as being born in 1985 and the film being set circa 2018. Jason Momoa was born in 1979.
  • Orm is Arthur's younger brother, and Patrick Wilson is six years older than Jason Momoa. The former being clean-shaven and short-haired while the latter is bearded and long-haired helped sell the fact that Orm is younger.
• Deleted Scene:
  • In the original version of the film, the Trench were meant to be played by actors in costumes and they featured shark-like heads.
  • After beeing captured by Orm Marius, Arthur Curry is thrown in a prison where he starts a prison riot, which ends up involving Sharks-guards.
  • A scene where Arthur Curry grabs Mera out of the water during a moment when the waves were particularly powerful.
  • Jason Momoa revealed via Instagram that the film's conclusion would have shown Aquaman, Nereus and the Brine King addressing the UN. Presumably this was cut due to its similarities to the mid-credits scene from Black Panther.
• Directed by Cast Member: The Canadian French dub was directed by Manuel Tadros, who also voiced Thomas Curry.
• Executive Meddling: The decision to include Black Manta didn't belong to James Wan, it was Geoff Johns (who was at the head of DC Films back when the film was greenlit) who decided to include him, as he's one of his personal favorite characters out of all those he worked on at DC Comics.
• Fake American: At least three of them. Queen Atlanna, King Atlan, and Thomas Curry (admittedly, Atlanteans aren't actually American, but they speak with the accents anyway) are played by the Australian Nicole Kidman, the Scottish Graham McTavish and the New Zealander Temuera Morrison, respectively.
• Playing Against Type:
  • James Wan is quite possibly the biggest name in modern horror, but Aquaman is a Lighter and Softer superhero film that takes heavily after the retro adventure movies of the '80s with a bit of fantasy mixed in. Wan deliberately invoked this trope, wanting to make it different by sheer design^* though it's not his first time playing outside the horror sandbox, as he previously directed Furious 7. Though, to be sure, the monstrous Trench and Karathen do provide a bit of a horror element to the film as well.
  • Temuera Morrison, known for playing powerful warriors and ruthless bounty hunters, plays Arthur's sentimental father with no fighting skills.
  • Dolph Lundgren usually plays imposing bad guys, action heroes, or both. While King Nereus is opposed to the protagonist and does a reasonable amount of fighting, he's ultimately a noble Anti-Villain who's just obeying the will of his king.
  • Who in the world would have expected Julie Andrews to voice a gigantic sea monster?
• Playing with Character Type: Willem Dafoe has been typecast as characters who die and/or turn evil, with his last role in a superhero movie fitting the mold perfectly. Here Vulko was heroic all along and doesn't die.
• Production Posse:
  • Patrick Wilson's involvement makes this his fifth film with James Wan.
  • James Wan's longtime friend and collaborator Leigh Whannell makes a cameo as a cargo plane pilot.
• Release Date Change: The film's release date was moved from July 27, 2018 to October 5. Then it was moved again, to December 21. It also came out one week earlier than previously scheduled in the UK, on December 14, and even earlier in China, on December 6.
• So My Kids Can Watch:
  • Jason Momoa has been excited to play the role from second one when Zack Snyder chose him all the way back in 2013, but he has also expressed how happy he was for his children who are just as thrilled. He even saved his first watching of the finished film for the premiere to discover it at the same time as them.
  • Crossing with Awesome, Dear Boy, Nicole Kidman said that while she had fun filming, her daughters were especially interested in the film after learning that she was playing a superhero queen.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Thanks to their white-gold hair, strong chins and round cheeks, Nicole Kidman and Patrick Wilson are extremely convincing as a mother and son (especially considering she's only six years older than him.)
• Spoiled by the Cast List: Atlanna is played by Nicole Kidman which makes it highly likely she will appear again outside of the prologue as a star of her ranking wouldn't be limited to just a few minutes of screen time. In addition, the apparent de-aging effects suggest her re-appearance will be an older version of Atlanna than in the prologue (after all, you don't hire an actor who needs a fair amount of expensive CGI de-aging to play the entire part).
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Aquaman and Black Manta's new costumes were first glimpsed on a crew shirt, before finally being shown in full when images of the movie's statue line by DC Collectibles leaked online.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Jason Momoa wasn't a total unknown going into the movie, having previously gained some fame from a brief role in Game of Thrones. The success of Aquaman turned him into a more house-hold name, and since he's become one of the more popular DC actors to come out of the films made by them.
  • A more straightforward example would be Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who played Black Manta. He was virtually unknown beforehand and afterwards became a hot commodity on the scene.
• Working Title: "Ahab".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Karl Urban was considered for the part of Ocean Master before Patrick Wilson was cast.
  • Peter Jackson, Jeff Nichols and Noam Murro were approached to direct the film before James Wan was hired. Jackson turned down the offer due to his lack of interest in comic book movies.
  • James Wan revealed he initially had the choice of which film he wanted to direct between Aquaman and The Flash, but chose the former for being the "underdog".
  • At one point, the Dead King, an ancestor of Aquaman who was resurrected as an insane zombie, was to appear in the film as an antagonist, but he was removed.
  • Black Manta originally had more screen time in the movie, but the test audience and Wan felt like it was too much so his scenes were cut down. This was because they weren't sure if Aquaman would get sequel, but once they realized the movie would be a success, they made the changes to save it for the sequel.
  • Concept art depicting the Atlantean invasion of the surface world shows a sequence of Batman arriving in his jet to help defend Sydney. It's unknown if any other heroes were considered, but the uncertain future of the Justice League characters following the failure of the Justice League movie (including Ben Affleck's departure from the franchise) likely contributed to the cameos being axed.
  • According to Zack Snyder's pitch mentioned below, both Black Manta and Ocean Master were supposed to be captured and sent to a desert prison at the end of Aquaman, setting them up to be freed by Lex Luthor in Justice League: Part II so they could join the Legion of Doom.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Djimon Hounsou (who plays the Fisherman King and the Wizard Shazam in the film of the same name) and Natalia Safran (who plays Queen Rina here and Mrs. Sivana in SHAZAM!) both apply, although both wear so much makeup and prosthetics that they are unrecognizable save for their voices.
  • Well, sound: Patrick Wilson previously voiced the US President in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

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