When Warner Bros announced their official DC Comics movie slate in late 2014, Aquaman was one of the many features revealed to be coming between 2016 and 2020. After cameoing in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and making his full debut next year in Justice League, Jason Momoa's iteration of the aquatic hero will finally snag the spotlight for himself. For a long time, DC's King of the Seven Seas was expected to go on his solo adventure on July 27, 2018, but that's no longer the case. It's now been revealed that Aquaman will arrive in October of that same year.
The news just dropped (via Deadline) that Aquaman will swim into theaters on October 5, 2018, delaying the movie's release by a little over two months. Whether that means that another DC movie will take Aquaman's original July release date or if they have just exited that spot entirely is unclear. No other movie has been slated for that same Friday yet, although a fellow Warner Bros release, Jungle Book (Andy Serkis' take on the Rudyard Kipling tale), will arrive the following week.
From a creative standpoint, movie Aquaman to October is a good move if director James Wan felt he needed a little more time to make the movie the best it can be. That said, it's surprising that Aquaman is the DC movie that's being pushed back, considering that its fellow 2018 release, The Flash, has been dealing with behind-the-scenes issues lately. Rick Famuyiwa exited as director at the end of October reportedly due to creative differences, and with DC and Warner Bros now looking for a replacement, it's questionable whether they'll be able to kick off principal photography in January as originally planned. If not, that means it wouldn't be able to keep is March 2018 spot, thus delaying it. Should that happen, maybe because Aquaman has been moved to October, The Flash could take that July spot for itself. Another possibility is that Ben Affleck's Batman movie could score the vacant July date.
So far all we've seen of Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe was in Lex Luthor's video footage from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice where Arthur Curry destroyed a camera underwater with his trident before swiftly swimming away. His file was also part of the collection Amanda Waller gave to Bruce Wayne in the Suicide Squad mid-credits scene. Once he's embraced his inner superhero and fought alongside Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Cyborg in Justice League, then he'll swim off to battle Black Manta in his own movie the following year. Aquaman will also star Amber Heard as Mera and Willem Dafoe as Vulko, both of whom will first appear in Justice League.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on how Aquaman is progressing as more news washes up...it's a water pun, guys.
