James Wan Explains Why Aquaman Hasn't Gotten A Movie Until Now

In spite of being a founding member of the Justice League and having a nearly 75-year publishing history, Aquaman headed to the big screen for the first time earlier this year with a cameo appearance in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and is expected to get his own movie in 2018, spinning out of both Batman V Superman and Justice League.

Director James Wan, who will helm the Aquaman solo film, has been getting chatty about the film as it makes its way through the dangerous seas of Hollywood development, talking recently a bit about the tone and approach he hopes to take with the movie.

"I gotta say, one thing I love about the Aquaman world is all the really different, really interesting characters," Wan recently told CinemaBlend. "They are interesting characters, including the villains – I'm not going to tell you which villains I'm going to play with! [laughs] But they're super cool. They're very larger than life, but they're unique."

He also talked about the idea that it took 75 years to get the hero to the big screen -- a journey that hasn't even had the kind of long-term small-screen presence that Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, or others have had along the way.

"There's a reason why they've never made a movie about this until now, because technology has never allowed us to tackle something this complicated," Wan said. "And so because of that it feels like something different, and that uniqueness is what I'm excited about."

That's an argument that's been made before; doing an Aquaman film in the past (or TV show or whatever) would have been difficult becuase you would have had to do more or less everything above water, and you would lose out on some of the most interesting elements of what makes the character unique.

Aquaman is due in theaters in 2018. Star Jason Momoa is currently filming the first Justice League movie, due in theaters in November of next year.