‘Aquaman’ Director Reveals Deleted Flashback Scene

James Wan had complete reign of Aquaman to make just the film he wanted, which also meant removing a training scene from the final cut of the movie.

Mild spoilers for Aquaman follow! You’ve been warned!

While the theatrical release of Aquaman features sequences showcasing how Arthur Curry learned to tap into his Atlantean powers from the teachings of Vulko (as revealed in this clip), there were additional story beats showing off Arthur reaching his full potential. As the film already topped 2 hours and 20 minutes, Wan elected to remove the bit as means to keep the pace steady.

“I count one or two scenes ultimately that I didn’t feel like it moved the narrative forward in a big way, and already I’m like the movie is a bit longer than I would like, and so you’re trying to find stuff just to cut down,” Wan told ComicBook.com. “And so there was one scene that hopefully will be on the Blu-Ray or DVD, and that is how Arthur learned to breathe underwater for the first time.”

While it might be available in the future releases of Aquaman on home video, Wan insists the deleted moments were not crucial to the narrative.

“I know it sounds very important, but it being a flashback scene, I really felt like I had too many flashbacks as it were, and that I didn’t want to cram another one in there,” Wan explained. “And I felt like it was the only one that I could lose without having the narrative suffer.”

Whether or not more of Aquaman’s training sequences are featured in the inevitable sequel is unknown, just like whether or not Wan will return to direct it.

“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.”

For more information about Aquaman, check out ComicBook.com’s Recap to the Rescue in the video above!

Aquaman is now playing in theaters.