Jason Momoa tempts the gods, says he'll "always be Aquaman"
"Ain’t anyone coming in there and taking shit," Momoa told a crowd at Sundance this weekend
In much the same tone of voice that we imagine people using while walking around in thunderstorms holding big metal sticks, yelling “Lightning’s got nothing on me!” Jason Momoa loudly declared to a crowd at Sundance today that “I’ll always be Aquaman.” Momoa made the statement while talking up the new documentary he’s at the festival to promote—environmental doc Deep Rising, which Momoa narrates—but also amidst increasingly looming questions about the DC Films franchise, which has been jettisoning Supermen and other superheroes at velocity of late.
To be fair, Momoa’s confidence isn’t exactly unearned: For one thing, he’s got a big blockbuster for the studio already in the can, with Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom firmly set for a December 2023 release. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the first Aquaman was a bona fide hit, the only DCEU film to break $1 billion at the box office—or that it was directed by James Wan, long-time producing partner of newly minted DC Films co-head Peter Safran. (Whose own producing work on Aquaman is pretty obviously a big part of why he got the job.)
All of which, presumably, let to a much rosier meeting between Momoa, Safran, and fellow DC Films head James Gunn recently than the ones that happened between the newly installed duo and, say, now-former Superman Henry Cavill. “I’m in the house of Warner Bros. and they are liking a lot of stuff I’m doing,” Momoa told the crowd at Sundance. “We got a lot of good things coming.” Hell, maybe he plays more characters—who knows? (People keep suggesting space-faring bounty hunter Lobo, which Momoa certainly has the look for.) “I’ll always be Aquaman,” Momoa concluded, in defiance of the gods. “Ain’t anyone coming in there and taking shit. There might be some other characters, too. I can play other things, too. I can be funny and savage and charming.”