The Trench: James Wan’s Aquaman horror spin-off no longer in development

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Warner Bros. is in the business of making DC Comics adaptations and horror films produced by James Wan, and a couple years ago they announced that they were working with Wan to blend the two: Wan would be producing The Trench, a horror film centered on the sea creatures introduced in the Wan-directed DC Comics movie Aquaman (watch it HERE).

This was an odd project that we never heard much about, aside from the fact that Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald had been hired to write the screenplay, so it's not too surprising that Warner Bros. has now confirmed that The Trench is no longer in development. Deadline hears the reason for the cancellation is that Wan is too busy working on Aquaman 2 to focus on The Trench.

Warner Bros. released the following statement: 

As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward. We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future."

The DC slate they speak of includes The Suicide Squad, The Batman, Black Adam, The Flash, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Blue Beetle, Supergirl, Green Lantern Corps, Static Shock, Superman, Zatanna, Wonder Woman 3, and the previously mentioned Aquaman 2.