'Aquaman' Director James Wan Reveals How the Fishermen Were Created

In the age of superhero blockbusters, it's not a rare sight to see the budget of a single movie eclipse $200 million or more. A large part of a movie's budget is earmarked for a little something you might have heard of before — visual effects. Of course it's going to cost millions to see the Avengers fight Thanos on a moon of Saturn or to watch Arthur Curry join Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince to fight Steppenwolf on a makeshift Apokolips.

But at the end of the day, nothing beats good old practical effects, and that's exactly the case when it came to the Fisherman King and his cohorts in Aquaman. Taking to Twitter in response to a fan, Aquaman director James Wan revealed that the cast members who play the Fishermen were put into makeup.

"Of course it is. Practical makeup-fx on the top half of actors, sculpted by @FrancturedFX," Wan confirmed. "Digital work on bottom half and environment by ILM. Best of both worlds. Just like Arthur."

As far as Fractured FX goes, they're no stranger to practical effects through the use of makeup. The company — led by CEO Justin Raleigh — worked on blockbusters such as JJ Abrams first Star Trek movie and the Insidious franchise. Raleigh won an Emmy for Oustanding Prosthetic Makeup For A Series for his work on American Horror Story: Freakshow in 2015.

The first look at the Fisherman King and the other Fisherman was released earlier today.

"In this scene, King Orm (Patrick Wilson, not shown) has gone to the Fisherman King (played by Djimon Hounsou, that guy with the trident — and more on that in a minute) to enlist his help to declare war on the ocean-polluting surface world," EW says of the scene. "There's also the Fisherman Queen (Natalia Safran) and Princess (Sophia Forrest) on the left, and a royal guard on the right. Though you can't tell in this shot, all of them have tails instead of legs."

In addition to the new photos released earlier by EW, fans can be sure to see plenty of new looks when the Aquaman trailer finally drops during the movie's monstrous Hall H panel at next week's San Diego Comic-Con.

How do you think the Fisherman King looks? Are you a fan of the use of practical effects over computer generated images? Let us know in the comments below!

Aquaman hits theaters on December 21, 2018.