James Wan on how the the characters in Aquaman will talk underwater

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

When Mera (Amber Heard) spoke with Aquaman (Jason Momoa) in JUSTICE LEAGUE during our introduction to the realm of Atlantis, she created an air bubble around them, leading fans to feel cheated out of actual underwater dialogue. AQUAMAN director James Wan took to Twitter to reassure fans that his film would NOT be using the same trick. So, just how has James Wan managed to solve the underwater dialogue problem which has launched our world into chaos? Turns out that he took the most logical route – by simply having the characters…talk. Mind blown.

Entertainment Weekly got the chance to take a peek at about fifteen minutes of AQUAMAN recently, where they noticed that the Atlantean characters simply spoke normally underwater. "People are overthinking it," Wan said. "They’re just gonna talk!" Definitely the best solution in my book, and EW says that there's an added visual effect which suggests sounds waves as the Atlanteans speak. It remains to be seen whether AQUAMAN can dig Warner Bros. out of the hole they dug with JUSTICE LEAGUE, but I'm inclined to believe it will.

Warner Bros. executives also recently praised the work which James Wan has done on the film. "James has done an incredible job with his team," said Warner Bros. honcho Toby Emmerich. "The film is taking you to a different place and imagining the underwater world in a way you haven’t seen before." Peter Safran, one of AQUAMAN's producers, added that the film has, "got the great action you expect, it’s got a lot of great humor, it works on so many levels … it’s a testament to James’ unique vision. I think it’s an extraordinary step in DC Universe that sets it on the right path." We still don't know all that much about AQUAMAN, other than it will find Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) battling his half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) over the fate of Atlantis. EW added that we can expect to see "the seven undersea kingdoms, giant octopi and Atlanteans riding great white sharks into battle" as well. Geoff Johns, who recently exited his position of CCO of DC Entertainment, added:

The underwater stuff has never been executed like this before. The visual effects shots coming in are just beautiful. James can switch modes from horror to big bright colorful action to really emotional scenes. He’s so able to hit all these different genres.

Previous AQUAMAN reactions, which should be taken with a grain of salt, have compared the film to WONDER WOMAN in tone, calling it an "emotional action movie" which includes STAR WARS-like underwater battles and a few scary monsters. Our own Editor-in-Chief Paul Shirey caught a work-in-progress AQUAMAN trailer at CinemaCon several months ago which sounded quite thrilling, but I'd imagine that the official trailer coming down the pipeline may be a little different. AQUAMAN will hit theaters on December 21, 2018.