No, it isn’t an April Fools joke. The Hollywood Reporter has just revealed that two large adaptations are sadly not moving forward with the studio. One of them being the Aquaman spin-off focused on the newly introduced Trench. It would’ve been the first DC film to jump into a more horror-focused story, as it would explore the world of the deadly amphibious creatures that we saw in the Jason Momoa-led film. Director James Wan had been producing the film together with Peter Safran. It would’ve been based on a script by Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald. The statement offered by Warner Bros. seems to hint that it is shelved for now but could be brought back to life at a later date. It isn’t the end for Wan’s time with DC, as he is still hard at work on the Aquaman sequel.
It seems that DC has decided to take a new direction with loosely interconnected pieces, which is why Ava Duvernay‘s New Gods got canceled. It seems that at one point they considered moving it to HBO Max, just like James Gunn‘s Peacemaker series, but decided against it. It seems that his work on the Aquaman sequel was considered enough and they want to potentially return to the idea at a later date. They want to focus more on the Atlanteans. So, we could see a different spin-off for Aqualad or whatever characters they introduce in the sequel. It’s going to be interesting how this affects their future slate and what we may expect from DC moving forward.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
