Justice League didn’t “bomb” at the box office, but it did fail to meet box office projections. No one thought it would do as well as Thor: Ragnarok, which was just released a few weeks ago, but they projected that Justice League would cross the $100-million-opening mark, and do at least $110-120 million. It did not. Personally, I mostly blame Ben Affleck and Zack Snyder, but what are you going to do? Anyway, Jason Momoa has spent much of the past two years (or longer) working on Justice League and the stand-alone Aquaman movie, and he’s bummed about the box office. He chatted with EW:
He’s not paying attention to the critical response: “I try to stay the f— away from what people say. Some of my friends said, ‘Justice League isn’t doing well’ and it kind of bummed me out. But I didn’t want to look it up. I don’t want to look up the bad and the negativity. I don’t think that’s useful; it doesn’t help.”
He loves the DC Comic universe: “I’ve seen [Justice League] twice. I loved it the second time even more. I’m actually going to watch it again with my kids and my godchild. I’m going to see it with the perfect crowd of people — a regular crowd instead of at a premiere. So I’m excited. You can’t get into the whole ‘why this, why that.’ I went to [Wizard World Austin fan convention] this weekend and got great praise. Now obviously, that’s a positive place, and I’m not only interested in the positive. But if people love what we did with Aquaman, it’s all [director Zack Snyder] — it’s his brainchild. He came in with, ‘I’m going to make Aquaman a badass and I’m going to change stuff, and change the myths about this guy.’ And I busted my ass.”
A lot of Aquaman’s backstory was cut from the film: “The challenging part is [the Justice League story] is only about a weekend in Author Curry’s life. [Fans] might be like, ‘Why is he that grumpy? Why’s he hiding up there?’ We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it’s not my movie. It’s a huge movie introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there we just couldn’t get in. It could have been two movies. We had some stuff with William Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it because you’re going to see it in Aquaman. It’s not an Aquaman movie, it’s a Justice League movie.”
This makes me feel sorry for Momoa, truly. By most accounts, he was far from the worst thing about Justice League. Critics liked Wonder Woman, and many people saw Justice League just for Momoa. I think he would have been a great Aquaman if the material was there, you know? I guess we’ll have to pin our hopes to the stand-alone Aquaman film. Did you know that the stand-alone film will feature Nicole Kidman? I forgot about that. Patrick Wilson is in it too.
Photos courtesy of Warner Bros, WENN.
how do you say “hot damn, aquaman” in marine speak? glub glub?
This made me actually laugh out loud. Thanks!!
He’s fine in JL, and he looks good, but that’s about it.
He’s fairly charming when he’s basically just being himself, but not nearly to the extent Gal and Ezra are. He doesn’t rise above the terrible material like they do, and the few more dramatic moments he has are just a reminder he can’t really act.
He’s not bad, but there’s nothing about his performance in JL that got me excited for a standalone Aquaman film. The fact that the underwater scenes look like a super low budget B movie doesn’t bode well either. If even a little of that look carried over into the standalone it’s going to be a hot mess.
I know it’ll never happen, but the best thing for DC to do would be to stop, reassess, and come back in 5 years with a totally fresh take on their superheroes. They’ve well and truly botched this attempt at universe building, and it really would help them long-term if they’d just admit it and start over.
All of this. If you ignore the pretty, there was nothing special about his performance. Nothing.
This ‘focus on the positive’ spin is so obvious… It’s not like the criticism is gratuitous, and you can’t put out a product and expect only accolades. You are judged on the quality of your work, and justice league is sub-par.
I mean…do we really think aquaman is going to be great? No offense he’s nice to look at but not a stellar actor. And Amber Heard is the other lead who I don’t believe can act at all. The movie will probably be a mess as well.
My goodness, this man is absolutely gorgeous.
That’s all I got.
Just gonna second that.
that last photo. it is unfair to all the other men out there that he looks like that.
I think he did good, he’s not a bad actor. Although I love WW she didnt really have any standout moments. Though people went to see this because of her she didn’t carry the film alone. I liked it but it had it’s fault. I actually liked it better than Age of Ultron, which also had it’s faults. But Marvel movies do well on it’s name alone and critics tend to not drag them as much. Though I enjoyed GOTG, what was great about it.
Just wanted to say thank you to Kaiser for adding that last picture. Mmmmmm.
I’m going to be seeing this on Thursday (if my husband is over the cold that I gave him) and making 96m out of 100m isn’t bad. I’m not expecting Thor, or even an Avengers level flick. But I am going to enjoy the JM and Gadot eye candy 🙂
He shouldn’t be so hard on himself.
Can someone who also saw the movie please help me out?
I saw it last weekend and I really love the comics and “Justice League” Cartoon Network versions of Aquaman, so I was really confused about where his character was in this movie, since there were literally only two lines explaining his deal. ***Spoilers*** Were he and Mera married in this movie, because they seemed like they hated each other? And was he king in the movie or just some Atlantean? I honestly couldn’t figure it out.
Oh that shirtless photo…oh my.
He is so unattractive and whoever is doing his Botox needs to lose their license.
Please resurrect him on Game of Thones!!