James Wan Set to Forget Aquaman 2 Troubles With Epic Return to Horror in ‘Call of Cthulhu’ Movie
Australian filmmaker James Wan is one of the most talented directors in Hollywood. He is mostly known for his incredible work in the horror genre. Besides creating The Conjuring Universe, he has also helped co-create the Insidious and Saw franchises, which are two of the most popular horror group franchises to date.
James Wan made his feature directorial debut in 2004 with the movie Saw, on which he worked with his friend and fellow filmmaker, Leigh Whannell. The director’s most recent project is the Aquaman sequel and is looking to return to his go-to niche with a new movie.
James Wan is All Set to Make A Comeback to the Horror Genre
James Wan’s Saw franchise is globally commercially successful and has made more than $1 billion. However, he had a career setback between 2007 and 2009, following which he released the film Insidious in 2010. His next film was The Conjuring, centered on paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren’s most famous case. Both of these movies were great successes and spawned entire franchises.
Apart from these horror movies, Wan also directed the seventh Fast & Furious movie Furious 7 in 2015. Three years later, he made the DC Extended Universe movie Aquaman. Both of these movies grossed over $1 billion which made him the eighth director to have achieved this milestone.
Recently, Deadline announced that James Wan is working on a film adaptation of science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft’s classic horror short story The Call of Cthulhu. According to the outlet, Wan has been working on the movie for five years. In fact, he has described it as a “dream project” although it is a quite challenging task considering the exhilarating nature of Lovecraft’s stories.
The short story Call of Cthulhu is a story that is set in the 1900s but features three different timelines in which a cult worships an ancient deity named Cthulhu. In all the years following the publishing of the story, Cthulhu has been a prominent figure in many different mediums in fantasy, horror, and sci-fi stories.
James Wan on the Future of the Aquaman in DCU
Aquaman, released in 2015, was both a commercial and critical success. This led to the making of a sequel. However, the movie’s development was nearly not as easy with all the legal trouble Mera actress Amber Heard got into which resulted in a significant amount of backlash. That, added to the COVID-19 and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, further caused a delay in the overall process.
Now, with co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran rebooting the DC franchise, the future of existing superheroes is uncertain including Aquaman played by Jason Momoa. Addressing the future of the King of Atlantis in DCU, James Wan said:
“I know they’re [James Gunn and Peter Safran] in the middle of all that, so I’m sure it’s not something that you just whip up in one or two afternoons. I’m sure it’s a growing process and it depends on the different characters. I imagine that’s a pretty heavy task that they’re dealing with right now.”
That being said, Wan is very happy to have gotten the chance to make Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The movie is out in the theatres now for the fans to see.
