‘Aquaman’ Will Feature a Unique, Character-Driven Approach to Action Scenes

When Aquaman hits theaters in December, it’s set to bring a lot of incredible action to the DC Extended Universe, but it sounds like that it won’t be action for action’s sake — it will be uniquely character-driven.

ComicBook.com sat down with the producer Peter Safran during a visit to the set of Aquaman and he explained that it’s more than just the underwater nature of the action that is unique in the film.

“Listen, I think that perhaps with the exception of the Fast movies, I think that action along without character doesn’t really sell tickets anymore,” Safran said. “I think that the standard has raised above that now and I think that, y’know, if you just have a tone of action with no characters it’s really hard to get the audience in ’cause they’ve kind of seen it all. The good news for our action is they’ve never seen our action ’cause it’s happening underwater with dynamics and physics that nobody has really experienced before.”

He went on to explain that focusing on the characters and making sure audiences care about them before the action matters.

“But, we focused very heavily on the characters to make sure that, as I said earlier, a trademark of James’ [Wan] is to make sure you care about the characters before you see them go through the paces,” he said. “But, our action sequences I think are pretty unique and James has always tried to craft things that people have not seen before and also to service the characters in a really good fashion.”

The importance of having service to the characters within the element of action is something that Safran said is what makes the action really matter and, more than that, the action doesn’t “really count for much” without the character investment.

“So, we just basically finished the main unit stuff up there and that Italy sequence was always just this incredible sequence that James, the stunt guys, we all really put into this-it’s an incredible, incredible sequence, but it’s got different stuff in it; it’s got Manta stuff, it’s got Mera stuff, it’s got Arthur stuff, it’s got everybody using their respective strengths; it’s a unique piece, even though it’s not below water, but it is a unique piece,” he said. “And, if anything I would say it feels like what James did in Fast 7 with that incredible sequence on the road with the big truck that eventually ends up going over-just when you think there’s nowhere else you can go with it, he goes somewhere else with it. So, we spent a lot of time crafting original piece and I think that there’s a lot in this movie, there are a lot of action set pieces, but they don’t really count for much if the character stuff isn’t working early on.”

Are you excited to see the character-driven approach to Aquaman‘s action? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Aquaman will land in theaters on December 21st.