James Wan Explains Why He Chose to Direct… by filmjunkee
James Wan sat down with Uproxx to promote his movie, The Conjuring 2, but of course the questions about the Aquaman movie arose. Turns out, Wan was actually given a chose on which movie he wanted to direct, Aquaman or The Flash. Here’s his response:
It was, well, oh jeez, this would be a big tidbit: They asked me which of the two characters I’d be interested in and it was between The Flash and Aquaman.
This is how I weighed it: For me, we’ve seen various versions of The Flash. There’s a popular show on TV and there was a great one in the ‘90s. I loved that Flash! The thing that ultimately pushed me more towards Aquaman is I love the possibility of creating a whole new world. I’ve always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom. And also, I love the fact that Aquaman is an underdog character. I love the fact that people like to make fun of him. [Laughs.] I feel the bar is a lot lower and I can have fun with him! Everyone makes fun of him! And I actually don’t mind that! What it allows me to do: I think people are a lot less precious with him than, let’s say, you were doing a Spider-Man or a Batman or whatever.
I felt like it allows me the freedom to just tell the story of the character I wanted to tell. And I think what I proved for myself with Fast and Furious 7, how I took on this massive movie and I was able to overcome the tragedy that befell the production – I think it really proved to everyone I’m capable of doing more than just horror movies.