‘Furious 7’ Filmmaker James Wan Will Direct ‘Aquaman’ and ‘Robotech’
Furious 7 is the fourth highest grossing movie of all time. Ever. In film history. Number four, after Avatar, Titanic, and The Avengers. $1.5 billion at the box office and counting. A lot of the credit for that success goes to its longtime stars and creators who’ve kept the franchise running for 15 years through highs and lows. But some of the credit also goes to James Wan, who stepped in to direct the film after longtime franchise steward Justin Lin left the series, and who managed to keep the movie and its crew together following the tragic death of star Paul Walker. He delivered a really satisfying Fast & Furious that simultaneously served as a lovely tribute to Walker. It was an incredibly difficult job, and Wan nailed it.
Wan had made major hits before, but almost exclusively in the world of horror, where he’d directed the first Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring movies. So the major success of Furious 7 almost certainly landed him his next two gigs, per The Hollywood Reporter: Directing Sony’s adaptation of the classic anime Robotech, and directing Warner Bros. solo Aquaman movie, starring Game of Thrones’ Jason Momoa.
Momoa’s underwater prince will make his onscreen debut in next year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, then get spun off into his own movie in 2018. THR reports that Warn “will also be overseeing the script's writing by scribe Kurt Johnstad.” That project will likely happen before Robotech, but not until after Wan finishes making The Conjuring 2: The Endfield Experiment, which he’s scheduled to shoot his fall for a June 2016 release. Wan’s going to be a very busy guy for the next few years.
This is great news for DC fans, as they’ve landed one of the best young action directors in Hollywood to helm Aquaman, a movie that could be a majorly dicey proposition (especially if a lot of the movie takes place underwater and relies on digital special effects). It’s not so great news for Fast & Furious fans, since it means they’ll need to find yet another new director to helm the franchise moving forward.