Dolph Lundgren argues there’s a better cut of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom that was sacrificed when reshoots got underway.
Writing about the movies used to be more about the films and the personalities involved in making them rather than court cases and corporate decisions. Well, to a degree anyway. And while I’ve no desire at all to wade into the online ‘discussion’ about the differing court cases that have been going on, it has had a knock-on, it seems, with a recent blockbuster film.
Dolph Lundgren has been chatting about the recently-released, James Wan-directed sequel Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, which landed in cinemas just before Christmas. Jason Momoa stars of course, with the mighty Lundgren reprising his role of Nereus, the father of Mera. Mera being the character played by Amber Heard.
Heard, of course, has come out of the other side of high profile court cases involving Johnny Depp. It’d be fair to say that some people on the internet firmly took sides against her.
It was already well known that reshoots had limited the screentime for the character of Mera, and Lundgren has been chatting about how his own role was shrunk as a consequence of that.
Dolph Lundgren has been talking to ComicBook about this, as he promotes the film Wanted Man. He doesn’t sound too happy either.
“I just realized that it was some kind of corporate decision that they try to limit Amber Heard and then I’m playing as her dad and went along with it,” he said. Warner Bros obviously hasn’t commented on this particular suggestion.
Lundgren does argue there’s a better version of the tepidly-reviewed Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom out there, though. “I thought the original script was great and the original cut… I saw a little bit of it, it was really good, so I didn’t see any reason to start reshooting and reshaping the story, which obviously led to disappointment in the moviegoers and not just me.”
The original film grossed over $1bn at the global box office. The current standing take for the sequel at the time this is being written? $375m. It’d be fair to say nobody is really expecting there to be an Aquaman 3, given how much the movies cost to make…
Read more: Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom review | Jason Momoa’s fishman is back
