Aquaman 2 Director Agrees The Teaser Is 'Hilarious' (But Not In A Good Way)

With less than three months until its debut, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" still doesn't have a full trailer. As of August 31, the highly anticipated Jason Mamoa sequel became the DC film with the shortest distance between its first trailer and its premiere. For whatever reason (possibly the chilling box office performances of its last several superhero features), Warner Bros. has opted for a noticeably muted marketing campaign for what is essentially the final film of the old DCEU before James Gunn finally shifts the franchise away from the post-Zack Snyder interregnum.

It's arguably this lack of fanfare that managed to turn the release of the film's first teaser into a head-scratcher, especially since it's essentially just a sizzle reel of footage we'd usually see in an actual trailer — and not even James Wan can dismiss how weird that is. In response to a colorful comment on his Instagram that lightly teased the teaser for being a mere trailer for a trailer, the film's director responded: "[H]aha. I know, it's hilarious." While Wan certainly wasn't denigrating the work of his fellow artists and was more likely ceding the harmless ridiculousness of modern blockbuster trailer culture, it's difficult to read even a glib comment like this outside the context of his embattled journey to finishing the "Aquaman" sequel.

It's hard to overstate James Wan's contribution to the DCEU. In the aftermath of Joss Whedon's "Justice League" bombing at the box office and drowning what little goodwill was left for the franchise, the "Saw" creator delivered a billion-dollar blockbuster. Unless "The Lost Kingdom" does some truly shocking numbers in December, the original "Aquaman" will almost definitely be the highest-grossing film of the DCEU proper. It was a no-brainer that the studio immediately fought to get the director committed to a sequel and a spin-off (don't think we forgot about "The Trench," WB).

And yet, in an era including the notoriously controversial "Flash" film, the widely condemned cancellation of Max's "Batgirl," and the entire Dwayne Johnson-"Black Adam" fiasco, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" has quietly appeared (through leaks and reports) to be equally dysfunctional. At the end of 2022, it was reported that the sequel had gone way over budget, ballooning to over $205 million. Two months later, it was reported test screenings were so poorly received that audience members were walking out of the theater (and, of course, the internet blamed Amber Heard). As of July 2023, it was said to have gone through three rounds of reshoots.

All this to say, we should probably be grateful we've gotten any footage at all. You wouldn't be able to find many directors in Hollywood envious of Wan's predicament, having to produce a sequel in a confused cinematic universe through three massive regime changes, only for it to be undermined by an impending James Gunn reboot. Perhaps we should just be grateful he can have a sense of humor about the experience.