‘Aquaman 2’ In Development, James Wan Likely to Return

After the billion dollar success (and counting) for James Wan‘s Aquaman, Warner Bros. Pictures is eager to get started on a sequel to the DC Comics film.

According to a new report from Deadline, the studio is courting Wan to return to the director’s chair, but don’t expect it to happen anytime soon. A spokesperson for Wan said he’s taking a break after the grueling production and promotional tour for Aquaman, and that he won’t make a deal to sign on for the sequel until they find a “seaworthy” script.

While fans and studio executives would like to see Aquaman 2 in theaters sooner than later, patience is probably the best approach in this situation. After all, it’s nice to know that the sequel is actually in development, and that Wan is likely to return in the future.

Wan was previously bullish on returning for a sequel right away, according to a previous interview with ComicBook.com. The filmmaker expressed his desire to tackle new challenges, having made entries and started his own established franchises like Saw, Insidious, the Conjuring, and Fast & Furious.

“I mean, liking the people I work with goes a long way,” Wan said. “That was the reason why I came back when I did Insidious 2. But it’s a weird one for me, because I actually don’t know what I want to do next for the first time in my career. I felt like Aquaman ticked a lot of boxes for me. I want to do another action movie after Furious 7, I wanted to do a world creation film, and I wanted to do a superhero movie, and Aquaman literally ticked all of those boxes for me. And so right now, I’m in that sort of place of like do I kind of go back and do a smaller movie maybe as my next one, something a bit more intimate. Or if I can do a personal movie, but maybe it’s on a bigger scale. I’m not sure at this point.”

Fellow DC Comics director David F. Sandberg also downplayed the idea of returning for a sequel so soon after the release of Shazam!, which hits theaters later this spring.

“It’s just that it takes a crazy amount of work to do a movie like this,” Sandberg wrote on Twitter. “t’s like asking a runner at the end of a marathon if they feel like doing another one. You need some time to rest and forget how difficult it was.”

Aquaman is now playing in theaters everywhere.