If you’re one of the many that ended up watching DC’s latest superhero film in the Amazon Prime special screening day this past weekend, you probably know exactly what the critics mean when they say that “Aquaman” is a lot of movie. Director James Wan seemingly threw everything he could imagine in this new superhero epic, with nothing left on the cutting room floor. (I didn’t see it, but I’m sure you can find a kitchen sink, hell, the entire kitchen somewhere in there.) But according to a new interview, there’s actually something that Wan thought was too “out-there” for the final film.
During a Q&A that accompanied a special screening of the film (via Collider), Wan explained that there was one scene involving Jason “My Man!” Momoa’s superhero being captured that never made it past the script phase. And by the sound of it, it’s probably a good thing. The film features approximately 4,000 battle scenes, and definitely didn’t need another.
Wan explains the scene from the script:
“[Co-writer Will Beall] had a really quirky out-there [sequence]…it wasn’t the studio, it was me that said, ‘I don’t know if we can have that in there, that’s a bit weird.’ As much as I loved it. He had this sequence where…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. They were shark-guards, like all shark head…and 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.’”
Look, people are going to be excited for “Aquaman” when it hits nationwide this Friday. The film has charm for days, albeit buried under tons of tacky costumes, horrible acting, badly designed action sequences, and cringe-worthy, laughable dialogue. That being said, the film didn’t need a bloody feeding frenzy involving shark-guards at an underwater prison. Wan showed some rare restraint saying no to that scene, and we should all thank him.
If only he would have turned down Pitbull‘s version of the classic ’80s song, “Africa,” which elicited laughter (not the good kind) from my screening. Oh well, can’t win them all.
“Aquaman” hits theaters on December 21. Prepare yourself.