On set as Jason Momoa’s Aquaman gets wet and wild on the Gold Coast
DC’s superhero movies have copped flack for being grim, but having been inspired by the upbeat vibe of Wonder Woman and the gripping adventure of Indiana Jones, Aquaman is set to shine.
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SUPERMAN v Lex Luthor. Avengers v Thanos. Jason Momoa’s kids v Patrick Wilson’s kids. The pantheon of great superhero rivalries has a new entry.
It was this time last year when Momoa, as Aquaman, and Wilson, as Orm, were acting out their rivalry at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast, for the upcoming DC blockbuster Aquaman.
While cameras rolled on the grown-ups, their kids waged a war of their own.
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“My dad beat your dad,” the Wilson boys Kalin and Kassian declared. “Well my dad is Aquaman!” shot back Lola and Nakoa-Wolf Momoa. “But then my dad fights your dad and my dad wins!” bragged Kalin and Kassian.
Recalling the boastful back and forth, Wilson can only laugh: “It’s pretty awesome.”
Momoa reckons the Wilsons are winning on points: “Their dad is definitely beating me up.”
But what with Aquaman being the titular hero, we’re betting that Momoa is destined to win the long game.
After a blink and you missed it introduction in Batman v Superman and a welcome to the team in Justice League, the man known on land as Arthur Curry and underwater as the King of Atlantis finally gets his headline hero moment in Aquaman, due in cinemas this December.
The movie will colour in the backstory of both Arthur and the kingdom of Atlantis, then follow Arthur from the Sahara to Italy as he teams with Atlantean royalty Mera (Amber Heard) on a quest to find a trident before facing off against his warmongering half brother, Orm.
On set, we hear director James Wan’s undersea adventure described as a “blue sky movie”, a travelogue, a family story, Romancing the Stone, “The Little Mermaid on steroids” … nothing like the grim, foreboding template the DC Extended Universe had served up to this point.
“You can’t help but move away from that grimness that people were not embracing,” says producer Peter Safran.
“The goal was always to deliver — this is what we pitched to the studio that got them so excited — old-school Indiana Jones. It’s got all the action, but it’s also got great characters and a fun repartee and it has laughs while also having real jeopardy.”
Filming began on the Gold Coast at the start of May 2017.
Picture: Warner Bros
By the time we visit in early July, Aquaman has an upbeat ally: “Wonder Woman brought new life into our whole group,” says production designer Bill Brzeski.
Indeed, Wonder Woman’s critical and box offic success has given the team crafting film an Amazonian afterglow.
“A rising tide lifts all boats, right?” says Safran. “Not just for DC, but for the superhero world, it helps every time one of these movies succeeds or changes the language that we all speak, whether it was Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool or Wonder Woman.
“It absolutely provided a lot of uplift for the DC brand to be so successful with a movie that a year ago, the jury was out on whether it made sense.”
Thank you James!!! @creepypuppet We are SO excited for Aquaman. Plot is banging. Can't wait!! https://t.co/5rcEKRffhb
— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) 4 June 2017
Everyone is hoping Aquaman will swim a similar course.
“We’re trying to do something you haven’t seen before,” says Brzeski, who previously worked with Wan on Fast & Furious 7. “James and I are trying to do this a little different than all these other superhero movies. We’re working real hard to give the audience some fun fantasy, not constant battles.”
For Wan, who had his pick of blockbuster gigs after Fast & Furious 7, the attraction of Aquaman was mostly in world-creation — taking audiences down to a world they’ve never seen before, led by a superhero who’s never had his own movie.
“There’s so many superhero movies now in the world, people get a bit superheroed out, right?” says Wan, sitting down to chat at the end of a long day. “But no one’s done an Aquaman movie before. That was very exciting for me, because I didn’t want to do just any superhero film, I wanted to do one I could put my stamp on.”
Achieving Wan’s vision has required extensive technical wizardry, not least because 95 per cent of the movie is set underwater.
Months of intensive prep have led to this. Here we go. #DayOne #Ahab pic.twitter.com/Ryhl3NUtRY
— James Wan (@creepypuppet) 3 May 2017
How do you make Orm seem as if he’s propelling himself through the deepest ocean when the actor playing him is on land and completely dry? You strap Wilson onto a contraption called a “tuning fork” and wheel him around a blue-screen stage.
Today, Wilson is filming his side of that battle with Aquaman.
Dressed in Orm’s armour, Wilson kicks out at his opponent, then is propelled forward, as if swimming, by three crew in blue Lycra suits pushing his rig.
When cut is called, the star is pushed back to his mark, his legs dangling in the air.
Before the shoot began, Wan predicted this would be a “motherf---er” to pull off. How is it working out?
“Did I say those words?” Wan asks with a laugh. “It’s exactly like how I thought it would be … and just a bit more.”
The technically tough shoot has been offset by a willing cast. Wan isn’t joking when he says he brought in his frequent collaborator Wilson because he knew he “wouldn’t complain about how difficult things are”. And Safran praises Momoa for facing an “incredibly rigorous and tough schedule” with a smile, every day.
“Jason was born for today,” says the producer. “I literally can’t picture Aquaman as anybody other than Jason Momoa now. Which is bizarre because (the character has) been around 50-60 years as a blonde haired, blue eyed, Chris Hemsworth-y kind of guy. But to me that doesn’t compute at all.”
When the leading man appears, he’s wearing a Slayer T-shirt with black kinesiology tape plastered all over his legs: “They’re holding me together with tape.”
Momoa’s favourite superhero as a kid was Batman; his mission is to make Aquaman everyone’s new favourite.
“Here’s a guy who was raised by his father, never got to know his mum and he’s been on the road by himself. When he does discover that he’s special, he doesn’t know what to do with it,” Momoa says. “I’m biased towards him, I guess, because there’s just so many things I relate to.”
Just as Momoa found himself a fish out of water when he was moved from Hawaii to Middle America as a child, Arthur has been raised on land, disconnected from his Atlantean heritage.
“There’s a lot of things I can draw upon in myself and there’s a lot of things I haven’t shown people, especially on this scope,” Momoa adds.
Wan is pushing him to inject more cheekiness and charm, and in teaming with Mera, he gets to play romance, too.
“Which I’m REALLY good at,” Momoa grins.
If Aquaman has swagger, it’s because Momoa put it there. Everything about this production has been custom crafted to suit the 38-year-old’s rock ‘n’ roll presence, from his outfits (“He’s not a guy who’s really going to want to walk around in a skin-tight Lycra suit, right?” says costume designer Kym Barrett) to the storyline.
The only thing that could possibly shake Momoa’s alpha vibe on this set is the pending arrival of his Aquamum, Nicole Kidman.
The Oscar winner wasn’t due to film her scenes as Arthur’s mother, Queen Atlanna, until August.
“I haven’t met her yet so even saying it right now is a bit surreal,” Momoa says, shaking his head. “She’s just a legend. I’m gonna try to keep my cool. It’s gonna be a trip having my scenes with her and staring at her.”
He’s swimming with the big fish now.
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