You might say that after making a Fast and Furious film, directing "The Flash" may have been the natural choice for director James Wan. But, where's the challenge in that.
That's what Wan believes. The director revealed in his latest interview with Uproxx that he was actually given a choice by Warner Bros to either direct "The Flash" or "Aquaman." Here's why he selected the latter:
"This is how I weighed it: For me, we've seen various versions of The Flash. There's a popular show on TV and there was a great one in the '90s. I loved that Flash!" However, it was not the only thing that affected his decision.
"The thing that ultimately pushed me more towards Aquaman is I love the possibility of creating a whole new world," Wan said. "I've always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom."
He added, "And also, I love the fact that Aquaman is an underdog character. I love the fact that people like to make fun of him. I feel the bar is a lot lower and I can have fun with him! Everyone makes fun of him! And I actually don't mind that! What it allows me to do: I think people are a lot less precious with him than, let's say, you were doing a Spider-Man or a Batman or whatever."
A film on "Aquaman" is definitely a more complex undertaking. Add to that, the risk element of the film not shaping up as desired could build up a great deal of pressure on a director. But Wan cited the example of his last film, "Fast and Furious 7," as a project that ran into some major production hassles (with the death of Paul Walker) but still came out strong.
"I felt like it allows me the freedom to just tell the story of the character I wanted to tell. And I think what I proved for myself with Fast and Furious 7, how I took on this massive movie and I was able to overcome the tragedy that befell the production – I think it really proved to everyone I'm capable of doing more than just horror movies."
