CinemaCon just saw the first footage from DC Studios‘ Aquaman 2 and some critics are comparing it to Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern film.
The Jason Momoa-led DC underwater superhero movie has shown scenes from its upcoming movie in this week’s convention for the stakeholders of the film industry. Media professionals got their first look at the film, and reactions have been mixed extremes at best.
Undeniably, director James Wan’s 2018 Aquaman was definitely a huge hit. The movie practically removed the Atlantean superhero’s identity as a punchline in memes about the ‘Superfriends’.
The movie turned him into the badass Atlantean royalty that Momoa embodied effortlessly. Who would dare to still use Arthur Curry as a punchline when Momoa can do a wood-splitting throw of an axe just for fun?
Neither was the 2018 Aquaman a joke in terms of its financial performance. With a production budget costing $160M, it actually breached the $1B mark to $1.14B in the worldwide box office throughout its run. Or shall we say “swim”?
Even though it didn’t rack in stellar critics’ score and audience ratings, its Rotten Tomato standing still wasn’t so bad. The PG-13 Action/Adventure movie that ran for 2h 23m generated a 65% rating on the Tomatometer. Meanwhile, the Audience Score shows it at a higher 72% from more than 25,000 ratings. Not bad at all. DC has done worse, right?
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Cinemablend’s Managing Editor, Sean O’Connell, tweeted his initial reaction to the footage. He said:
Big GREEN LANTERN (2011) vibes off #AquamanAndTheLostKingdom footage.
In a video uploaded on YouTube, he firmly stood his ground with his apparent dislike of the movie based on what they had seen. Sharing the frame with Hannah Saulic, O’Connell said:
It looks incredibly cheesy. And the CGI in it looks really bad. And that could be the fact that they need to finish it but I’m not basing it on the fact of this is unfinished green screen.
I’m talking about the design of whatever it is that they are fighting, looked very much like that Parallax villain that Ryan Reynolds fought at the end of Green Lantern. Which was like a foggy green ‘tentacle-ly’ thing.
Reportedly, James Wan describes the upcoming sequel as somewhat like a ‘buddy movie’ between Arthur and his brother Orm. Arthur will break Orm out of prison to go off an adventure to stop Black Manta from unleashing the ancient deepwater evil. According to O’Connell:
That ancient evil is the thing that looks horrible! So that’s a huge problem in my opinion if that’s gonna be the thrust of the movie going forward.
Meanwhile, an article from The Wrap seems to be describing a whole other movie. It even described the movie as James Wan’s sort of challenge to James Cameron’s underwater movie Avatar: The Way of Water in terms of visuals. The post said:
It’s still a jaw-droppingly gorgeous fantasy spectacle, with crisp, clear and colorful underwater photography showing that James Wan isn’t handing over the underwater franchise crown to James Cameron without a fight.
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Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Since ‘beauty is in the beholder’, it is likely that movie visuals are in the eyes of the film viewer. The two reactions are absolutely opposite, but it does show that the movie draws attention from its audience. The least any production can expect is indifference at this point.
A great movie will easily convince people to watch and rewatch it. One that isn’t so great will at least have people curious enough to somehow buy a ticket to see if it really is that bad. Some will even be interested to see a bad movie only to be different.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is still a few months away from its December 20 premiere. Even Cinemablend acknowledges the fact that the production is still working on it. Without a doubt, fans, particularly DC fans, would be expecting either a lot or maybe none at all.
If this movie is viewed as a stand-alone franchise, Aquaman fans will be expecting a lot. This is because the first movie was such a box office hit. Aquaman 2 needs to be on par with its predecessor.
If Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is to be seen as part of the bigger umbrella that is DC, then fans won’t expect much because they already know of the new DC slate just on the horizon. In my opinion, it won’t be advisable to be so invested in Arthur Curry at the moment because, starting with Gods and Monsters, the tides might just be changing.
What do you make of these reactions to the Aquaman sequel, with one comparing it to Green Lantern? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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