Aquaman 2: Will the Skyrocketing Budget Drown the Film?
History is in the making – or rather a new DC universe.
While James Gunn and Peter Safran are shaping the future of the DCU, we've been receiving various disturbing reports of the projects being slashed and dumped.
We've heard about the apparent discontinuation of Wonder Woman 3, Black Adam and Man of Steel 2. The recent announcement by Henry Cavill that he will no longer be Superman caused a major stir among the fans too. And there's also another movie, the future of which hangs in the balance.
It's been reported that Aquaman 2 starring Jason Momoa is facing serious problems. The fact is the film's budget has skyrocketed to an astounding $205 million.
According to Variety, Warner Bros. co-chief Pam Abdy informed Aquaman 2 filmmaker James Wan that he needed to bring down his reshoot budget. And this had happened even before Gunn and Safran took DC Studios under control. In one of his recent tweets James Gunn clearly said that making every person happy will be hard.
"We know we are not going to make every single person happy every step of the way, but we can promise everything we do is done in the service of the STORY and in the service of the DC CHARACTERS we know you cherish and we have cherished our whole lives," he tweeted, adding that more announcements on the future of the universe are on the way.
But the news we've recently learned can hardly be described as inspiring.
The fans believe that if a movie costs $205 million it should be visually stunning, and studios need to take a step back and stop being so reliant on CGI, because box office isn't supporting this any longer.
One of the interesting points brought up by fans was that the COVID pandemic certainly added a lot to budgets, sometimes up to 30%.
However, if you start shooting because you have to meet a deadline and not because you have a well-written script you will have to pay for it – both metaphorically and literally. Things will get very expensive very quickly. It is high time studios tighten the belts. The DCU fans argue that one can't say for sure if this is money laundering or producers and actors pocketing millions of dollars or all of the above but there's one thing everyone in the industry should do and this is to rein in budgets on blockbusters.
So, what will the final decision of the new DCU bosses be? We will certainly learn about their vision in the next couple of months. In the meantime we should brace ourselves for an eminent storm.