"Aquaman 2" Moves Release Date to the End of 2023

"Aquaman 2" Moves Release Date to the End of 2023
Ben Affleck is putting his Batman cowl on once again, but fans will have to wait awhile to see his character back up on the big screen. On Aug. 24, Deadline reported that Warner Bros. pushed the film's release date to the end of 2023, Christmas Day to be exact. But Jason Momoa will join Affleck in the upcoming "Aquaman" sequel, titled "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," so viewers still have something to look forward to.

In his July 28 Instagram announcement, Momoa posted photos of himself with his newlywed costar, plus a video of himself getting "busted" by unsuspecting fans on a Warner Bros. studio tour. "REUNITED bruce and arthur," he wrote in part. The two characters both appeared in 2014's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and 2017's "Justice League." They also show up in 2021's "Zack Snyder's Justice League," the recut version of the 2017 film. Affleck is also set to reprise his role as Bruce Wayne in the upcoming "The Flash" movie, which is expected next year (but could be delayed because of issues with the film's star, Ezra Miller).

"Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" is directed by James Wan, who directed the first "Aquaman" movie, as well as "Furious 7." Most of Wan's previous work was in horror, where he cocreated the Saw and Insidious franchises and the world of "The Conjuring." The movie's screenplay is by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who previously worked with Wan on "The Conjuring 2" and "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It."

Back in April, Wan spoke at CinemaCon about the new movie. According to CinemaBlend, he told the audience that they now had new technology that made it much easier to film the underwater sequences — and made it a lot more comfortable for the actors. "It's less painful for the actors, which makes it easier for me as well, because they're not screaming and yelling at me," he explained. "But the most important thing is it really frees up the filmmaking to really do things I've never been able to do before, and that is exciting." He said that the first movie forced the actors to endure "a lot of physical pain" because of the wires and tuning forks they were strapped into.