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Aquaman 2 director James Wan shares first look at Patrick Wilson’s buff new look

James Wan has shared a new picture giving us our first look at Patrick Wilson in Aquaman 2 and he's buff now

Aquaman 2 director James Wan shares first look at Patrick Wilson's new look

James Wan and the crew of Aquaman 2 are working hard to bring us the next instalment in the epic DCEU. One person who appears to have got his wires crossed, though, is Patrick Wilson. We’re guessing that when Wan asked the horror movie icon to “work hard” on the new Aquaman, Wilson heard “work out, hard” because he’s gotten shredded for the sequel.

Seriously in a picture that Wan shared on Instagram, Wilson, who plays the villainous Orm the Ocean Master, bears more than a passing resemblance to his on-screen brother Aquaman, aka Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa). With his unruly hair, abs you could grate cheese on, and ragged pants, he looks more like a member of Khal Drogo’s khalasar than the former King of Atlantis. This is the first hint we’ve got about Orm’s up to in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Last we saw the Aquaman’s sinister sibling, he’d just been deposed by his half-brother and was imprisoned. The post-credit scene teased the return of Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II” but it offered zero clues as to what was next for the former master of the oceans.

Judging by this picture, it’s possible that Orm was sentenced to spend the rest of his life on land, which would be a pretty harsh punishment for a deep-sea dweller. Wan’s caption teases that this may be the case. The caption reads: “I found this guy Patrick Wilson stranded on a desert beach, doing his Cast Away impression.” Perhaps in the sequel, Arthur’s forced to release Orm from his imprisonment in order to track down the titular lost kingdom?

 

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Wan and Momoa have been pretty tight-lipped about the plot of the next chapter in their Aquaman series. We don’t know anything about the story at all, outside of the title, and a bizarre clue that Wan gave Total Film about the action movie being “very heavily inspired by Planet of the Vampires.”

One thing we do know is that Arthur’s got a snazzy new black suit for the sequel (they’re all the rage at the moment). The new suit is believed to be a reference to the ’80s Aquaman, who wore a similarly coloured suit and may hint that, like those comics, the movie will delve into Atlantian mythology and magic. Who thought Aquaman 2 would be a fantasy movie?

Wilson isn’t the only returning Aquaman alumni. Amber Heard has confirmed that she’ll be back as Mera, Aquaman’s love interest, while Black Manta will also return to darken the King of the Seven Seas’ door again.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom splashes into theatres on December 16, 2022.