{"id":101896,"date":"2023-12-15T01:39:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T01:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/?p=101896"},"modified":"2023-12-15T01:39:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T01:39:55","slug":"his-films-have-earned-nearly-4-billion-at-the-box-office-can-this-aussie-director-strike-gold-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/lifestyle\/his-films-have-earned-nearly-4-billion-at-the-box-office-can-this-aussie-director-strike-gold-again\/","title":{"rendered":"His films have earned nearly $4 billion at the box office. Can this Aussie director strike gold again?"},"content":{"rendered":"
By <\/span>Michael Idato<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n James Wan on set with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.<\/span><\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.<\/p>\n James Wan\u2019s name is synonymous with horror cinema. He directed the razor-sharp Saw<\/em> and co-executive produced its sequels. He directed The Conjuring<\/em> and its sequel and produced an assortment of things that go bump in the night, including Annabelle<\/em> and Lights Out<\/em>. He\u2019s turned nuns into horror movie poster girls. He\u2019s the reason you\u2019re mortally afraid of dolls, and<\/em> leave the hallway light on at night.<\/p>\n But in 2015, Wan stepped into the action mainstream with Furious 7<\/em>, the seventh instalment of the Fast & Furious<\/em> franchise, which brought in about $US1 billion at the box office. It won him the right to take on DC\u2019s Aquaman<\/em>, the second chapter of which, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/em>, is released this month. Wan pushed the once-wet superhero out of the comic book sidestream and onto DC\u2019s main stage, alongside Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Oh, and it also brought in about $US1 billion at the box office.<\/p>\n That means Wan\u2019s box office total to date is close to $US4 billion. And while those numbers might put him still a way behind Marvel\u2019s Kevin Feige (at almost $US30 billion) and Star Wars\u2019 Kathleen Kennedy (at around $US13 billion) they do put him in the ballpark of Steven Spielberg and Bond matriarch Barbara Broccoli, whose career-to-date totals sit around the $US5.5 billion mark.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n James Wan with a fan at the premiere of Aquaman 2. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI never really think about the money,\u201d the 46-year-old filmmaker says, when I gesture to an open space near us, and ask him to picture his accumulated box office, stacked in crisp $US100 bills. (There would be about 40 million of them, in case you\u2019re trying to picture it yourself.) \u201cSure, it\u2019s fun from a bragging rights perspective, but I never let that aspect dictate how I make my movies or what projects I choose to direct. I just don\u2019t,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n What he still has, he adds, is an underdog mentality. \u201cEverything I do, I still feel like I\u2019m struggling to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of that is that I never grew out of my indie origin. I see myself as the guy who\u2019s trying to break out at Sundance. Even though I\u2019m obviously not making movies at that level any more, that has never left me. And it\u2019s a good thing because it helps to keep me yearning to do something bigger, and better.\u201d<\/p>\n Wan was born in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, raised in Perth, Western Australia, spent his later teenage years in Lake Tuggeranong, Canberra, and his university years in Melbourne. \u201cWhen I was growing up in Australia, it was strange for me, you\u2019re not quite sure where you\u2019re from in terms of your identity,\u201d Wan says. \u201cI was born in Asia, but I grew up in Australia, all my friends are Australians, I grew up heavily with the Australian culture.\u201d<\/p>\n As a teenager, he struggled to bring it into balance. \u201cBut as you get older, you start to realise that you have the best of both worlds,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when I was directing the first Aquaman<\/em>, that theme really resonated with me, Arthur Curry\u2019s character was really that, a guy who wasn\u2019t sure. He\u2019s from the surface world, but he\u2019s also connected to the undersea. He wasn\u2019t quite sure if he belonged but at the end of the day, he realised he\u2019s the best of both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n The first film Wan recalls seeing in a cinema was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/em>. The mathematics of the film\u2019s release date (1937) and Wan\u2019s birthdate (1977) suggest he did not catch its first theatrical run. \u201cThe magic of filmmaking definitely wowed me,\u201d Wan says. \u201cI was young, I didn\u2019t know that there was this process behind the making of movies, but that was one that stuck with me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n James Wan and Jason Momoa while shooting Aquaman 2. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s an unsettling juxtaposition: the director of the Saw<\/em> and The Conjuring<\/em> movies fell in love with cinema through an animated Disney classic? Reassuringly the anecdote does come with a footnote: the next film he saw, which no doubt had a more enduring impact on his appetite and style as a director was Tobe Hooper\u2019s 1982 masterpiece Poltergeist<\/em>, which gave us homicidal clown dolls and malevolent spirits in a TV set.<\/p>\n \u201cThat made a huge impression on me,\u201d Wan says. \u201cThat drew me towards the horror genre in general, and it showed me the power of filmmaking and what it can do and how manipulative filmmaking can be to elicit a kind of emotion, a kind of feeling [from the audience]. And I remember how scared I was of the creepy clown doll. I think that movie had a big part in making me obsessed with creepy dolls.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Aquaman and Wonder Woman in Super Friends.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Warner Bros Television<\/cite><\/p>\n Wan delivered the first Aquaman<\/em> in 2018, the sixth film set in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). Its sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/em>, comes after a main shoot that ran for six months from mid-2021, several post-production reshoots, a substantial restructure for the film\u2019s studio, Warner Bros, which is now Warner Bros Discovery, and the recruitment of filmmaker James Gunn to effectively reboot the studio\u2019s DC Comics assets.<\/p>\n The film also had to contend with shifting release dates – from 2022 to early 2023, and then from early 2023 to the end of 2023 – and uncertain connections to other DC titles, including The Flash<\/em> and Shazam! Fury of the Gods<\/em>. The result is that the new film will not, as originally planned, directly reference any other DC titles, nor should we expect major cameos in it. (Scenes with both Ben Affleck\u2019s Batman and Michael Keaton\u2019s Batman were filmed, but later dropped.)<\/p>\n What is clear is that directing isn\u2019t always the glamorous job they sell in the film school brochure. \u201cI always like to point out, look at George Lucas, he directed the first Star Wars in 1977, and he never directed another one again,\u201d Wan says, laughing. \u201cHe hated it because it\u2019s such a stressful process. I mean, it\u2019s fun, but it\u2019s also, there are a lot of things that come with it. And I try to look at it spiritually. I try to look at why I wanted to do it in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jason Momoa and James Wan at an Aquaman meet and greet in 2018.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n The final trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/em> was released in September. Superfans immediately put a stopwatch to how much trailer screen time went to Amber Heard\u2019s Mera, the on-screen girlfriend of Momoa\u2019s Aquaman. The answer? A scant two seconds. The significance? Heard had spent much of the preceding two years mired in a messy divorce from actor Johnny Depp, and a subsequent defamation trial in which Heard said her part in the Aquaman sequel had been \u201csignificantly reduced\u201d.<\/p>\n To be fair, the second film shifts the story\u2019s focus to the relationship between Aquaman (Momoa) and his half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), who must join forces to defeat Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). The story\u2019s exploration of the rivalry between the half-brothers naturally elevates Kidman\u2019s Queen Atlanna, desperate for her two sons to cast aside their bitterness towards each other, to the film\u2019s female lead role.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s a curious lesson in the value of trying to divine a film\u2019s trailer for clues to the film itself. Wan has avoided talking about Heard\u2019s off-screen situation and, when I mention the briefness of her appearance in the film\u2019s final trailer, he does not address her role in the film directly.<\/p>\n \u201cThe trailer is a promotional tool, it\u2019s designed to sell the movie, to whet your appetite. The biggest complaint that filmmakers have, directors, is that they give away too much,\u201d Wan says. \u201cWith my horror films, I always felt like they give away a lot of the great scares. At the same time, you understand that they have to do that to put bums in seats. If you don\u2019t have something good in your trailer, then chances are there\u2019s probably nothing to pull from. To your point, I think it\u2019s a bit of everything, but ultimately, it\u2019s there to entice you.\u201d<\/p>\n Several cinematic precursors lead us to the world Wan has built around Aquaman. The most obvious is the DC pantheon itself: Richard Donner\u2019s 1978 Superman<\/em>, which set a gold standard for superhero films that still endures, Zack Snyder\u2019s 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice<\/em>, in which Momoa\u2019s Aquaman made his first appearance, and its 2017 follow-up Justice League<\/em>, which brought Momoa\u2019s Aquaman to the centre of the story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jason Momoa as Aquaman and Amber Heard as Mera.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Warner Bros Television<\/cite><\/p>\n There were earlier attempts to explore the world of Aquaman, notably in animation. The Superman\/Aquaman Hour of Adventure<\/em> in the late 1960s, Aquaman\u2019s prominence in the various Super Friends<\/em> series of the 1970s, and then a handful of appearances in the 1990s live-action TV series Smallville<\/em>, played by Alan Ritchson, and a television pilot, starring Justin Hartley, which did not proceed to series but was released via iTunes.<\/p>\n But the world of costume-clad screen heroes also traces its lineage to the high adventure films of director Ray Harryhausen, the man behind 1958\u2019s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad<\/em> and 1963\u2019s Jason and the Argonauts<\/em>. Harryhausen later did the special effects for the 1981 deities and demigods masterpiece Clash of the Titans<\/em>, which was directed by Desmond Davis.<\/p>\n Those films, despite their sometimes creaky special effects, particularly by the time Clash of the Titans<\/em> landed in a post-Star Wars<\/em> world with flying Pegasi, hideous Medusa and the gargantuan Kraken, bestowed a cinematic majesty on otherworldly monsters from the depths of the ocean, and their David-and-Goliath-scale clashes with heroes brave enough to stand against them.<\/p>\n What is more, the casting of film icons such as Laurence Olivier, Ursula Andress and Maggie Smith in Clash of the Titans<\/em>, particularly, in part inspires the cinematic tradition that turned Marlon Brando into Superman\u2019s father, Jor-El, and Peter O\u2019Toole into Supergirl\u2019s mentor Zaltar in the 1980s, and Kidman into Aquaman\u2019s mother, Queen Atlanna, in both of Wan\u2019s films.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Actor Noel Gugliemi and James Wan attend Universal Pictures\u2019 Furious 7 premiere in 2015.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWhat Ray brought to the industry wasn\u2019t just the tools, but the imagination that went with the stuff that he was doing,\u201d Wan says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really part of the magic of cinema, part of the magic of filmmaking, which is how do you bring these larger than life things that are obviously not real, how do you bring them to life? And it takes artists and technicians like him that can actually work it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Filmmaking, Wan says, is not just artistry and politics. \u201cYou have to be a technician as well, and the good ones are ones that can combine all of that together to tell the story. And the cool thing with Ray Harryhausen is that for me, he wasn\u2019t just a special effects guy, he was a storyteller. I think that\u2019s the reason why for most people of our generation, we grew up loving all these movies because we got to see, experience, these larger than life stories that until then you only read in comic books.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Aquaman himself, he was created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger and made his first print appearance in More Fun Comics #73<\/em> in November, 1941. The character, the son of a human lighthouse keeper and the queen of Atlantis, has the earthly name Arthur Curry, but is, in Atlantis, known as Orin. Later, in the 1950s-1960s \u201csilver age\u201d of comic books, Aquaman was a founding member of DC\u2019s Justice League.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n James Wan in LA.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Darcy Hemley<\/cite><\/p>\n In purely cinematic terms, Aquaman\u2019s more popular stablemates Superman and Batman carved off the lion\u2019s share of the big movie action. So exactly how, I ask Wan, does a filmmaker make Aquaman a sexy proposition? (One caveat: I tell Wan he is not permitted to offer actor Jason Momoa, whose sex appeal speaks for itself, as the answer.)<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a reason why an Aquaman story was harder to do back then because ultimately, it\u2019s a very hard, expensive movie to make, right?\u201d Wan says, pointing out the self-evident fact that many of the film\u2019s key sequences take place underwater. \u201cSo eventually technology caught up to that, we can now make that work. So that\u2019s a big part of the reason it took a while to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n The other problem, Wan points out, is that \u201cfor the longest time, people made fun of Aquaman, right? Thanks to things like [the television series] Super Friends<\/em> and Family Guy<\/em>, they really pushed on him.\u201d To be fair, Aquaman was an easy target: his superpower was commanding sea life using \u201caquatic telepathy\u201d and his variation of Wonder Woman\u2019s iconic \u201cGreat Hera!\u201d was \u201cGreat Gastropods!\u201d<\/p>\n When he was first brought into Warner Bros to take on the project, Wan was offered a choice of Aquaman<\/em> or The Flash<\/em>. He chose Aquaman<\/em> \u201cbecause I felt like he was the underdog character. He really resonated with me and I related to him. I loved the idea of taking something that has a certain perception, and then I get to twist it. That\u2019s what made it fun for me and, along with Jason, to try and make him as cool and fun and unique as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n It was also important, Wan adds, to \u201cnot be embarrassed by the more goofy aspect of his character and his world that he lives in, but to actually embrace it and wear it as a badge of honour, and try and find a cool version. The idea of a superhero riding a seahorse is kind of lame, but the idea of Jason Momoa riding a sea dragon isn\u2019t, right? So there are ways to kind of skin this cat, and that was part of the challenge, to find a visual, interesting take on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/em> lands in cinemas at what could be described as a unique crossroads for the medium itself. The big blue-chip franchises, such as Marvel and Star Wars and even Disney\u2019s animation slate, have hit some hard bumps in the road, both creatively and commercially. Their weakness, though this is an unscientific assessment, might be that what is offered in cinemas is difficult to differentiate from what is offered at home on streaming, creating a consumer inertia that is hitting those slates where it hurts.<\/p>\n At the same time if we look at the four biggest box office hits of the past two years \u2013 Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>, Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em>, Barbie<\/em> and Oppenheimer<\/em> \u2013 which took almost $US6.5 billion between them, each delivered clear lessons in scale of production, clarity of story, uniqueness and originality.<\/p>\n Critical to the process, Wan says when I put that to him, is the ability to cut through. \u201cOne of the biggest competitions is between the cinema theatrical experience and streaming, and there are other things that we deal with nowadays that previous filmmakers didn\u2019t have to worry about,\u201d Wan says. \u201cThey were not competing with Instagram, TikTok, or just the internet in general. There is more competition out there, and you need to be able to cut through the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n Wan\u2019s company Atomic Monster makes content for cinemas, television and streaming. He is, he says, a fan of them all. \u201c[But] when I set up to make my movies, for the ones I direct, I obviously make them with the intention and the aspiration of experiencing them on the biggest screen possible. And when you look at those examples they are truly films that you have to go to the big screen to really experience. That\u2019s how they\u2019re unique. They play larger than life.\u201d<\/p>\n Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/em> is in cinemas from December 26.<\/strong><\/p>\n Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. <\/i><\/b>Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nSave articles for later<\/h3>\n
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