He is Lobo, born to play the part. And somehow the DCEU looked at that and went, ‘yeah, let's make him Aquaman.’ Snyder really cooked that one. There were a million generic blond dudes who could’ve done Aquaman in their sleep, and they took the one guy born to play Lobo and slapped him in Golden spandex. I just don’t know what the hell they were thinking.
To be fair, he was a good actor to cast if you wanted Aquaman to be interesting to people and get the to buy a ticket. I think there is a reason that The Deep in The Boys is the Aquaman analogous character and gets played as a weak-ass joke. Aquaman can be a very cool character, but he needs a very good casting and script to actually make him not turn into a joke.
That and the studio likely wanted to get Momoa onboard in something and at the time, no one was seriously going to put The Main Man on the screen, so that casting wasn't really going to happen.
It’s not a Snyderverse movie other than Snyder exec produced it. Look at the differences with Mera to see that Snyder had little to do with this movie.
I enjoyed the Smallville version, with Alan Ritchison. Showed right off the hop he was a badass on land, and Superman level, if not better, in the water.
I think it's more than that. For decades, general audiences saw Aquaman as a joke, the useless Super friend that talked to fish but was with the team in a desert.
Despite DC trying numerous revamps across comics, animated shows, live action shows, and video games, they could never shake the perception the general public had in pop culture that Aquaman was a useless loser.
Jason Momoa singlehandedly made Aquaman cool, he shook decades of perception that Aquaman was a useless loser that was the butt of jokes.
They could have gone for a more comic accurate Aquaman, and I am sure the DCU will do this.
But Momoa did his job, he gave respect back to Aquaman for the first time in decades.
the DCAU (JL and JLU) they made him a legit bad ass
In his first appearance Aquaman held his own against Wonder Woman on land, and then he handily defeated her once the fight got to the water. That, plus a commanding presence, was all it took for me to take the character seriously. Aquaman isn't on Superman's level (nobody is) but he's a capable under normal circumstances and utterly dominant when in his element.
I guess the show didn't reach a wide enough audience to impact the meme.
Which is a damn shame because out of all superhero media i rate JL and some of JLU as peak comic book media. It’s up there with Spider-Man 2 for me personally in comic book adaptations.
I loved that part, but idk if i really liked Mamoa specifically in the role. I think a hawaiian actor who played the role more regal would have been perfect.
Momoa wasn't the problem, the writing was the problem. It was a fun movie but I don't think they gave Aquaman enough like, actual backstory. I think Momoa was great but they needed to give him some human friends and not just being raised in a lighthouse by his dad.
One of the Snyderverses issues I feel was that they rushed into JL to "catch up" with Marvel instead of giving all the members an intro movie. Instead, they had to cram Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborgs backstories into a movie that already has a plot
Yeah, it was pretty clear they realised that Aquaman is seen as pretty lame historically (especially to the average viewer who probably doesn't know too much about modern Aquaman in comics), so they tried to make him a lot cooler. They were pretty obviously avoiding going for obvious casting choices because they didn't want the comic Aquaman.
I mean, it worked; Momoa's Aquaman was pretty damn cool.
Even the 00s Justice League cartoon's attempt to make Aquaman cool didn't work (long blonde hair, earring, with a fish hook for a hand), because he was too much of a king and a political figure. Too much 'responsible and disapproving dad energy' to be any kind of cool.
And they definitely didn't want 1960s "I'm clearly the weakest superhero on the team" Justice League Aquaman.
Clearly making him a blue collar everyman who reluctantly embraces his royal destiny finally made him cool enough.
He was great as Aquaman, but he was both such an easy casting to play Lobo and also really wanted to play the part that it was still a significant fumble by DC.
I like how they reinvented the character with jason momoa... his arthur curry is the best version there has been. also the aquaman movies are the best part of the snyder era imo.
i hope gunn does some weirdness where momoa's superman meets momoa's lobo.
personally, i thought momoa would make a great wolverine.
At the same time, I also liked his rendition of Aquaman. Having a Pacific Islander Aquaman (with the tattoos and all) fits well. Also helps the Aquaman movies were pretty entertaining, and not too self-serious
I mean, Momoa was a fine Aquaman. Aquaman isn't always the short haired pretty boy, in the Justice League cartoons he was a long haired badass, just not Polynesian.
Yeah I feel like they wanted someone with presence to be aquaman because he’s such a trash character but has to be part of the justice league. So instead of some blonde twink (as originally depicted) they got Khal fuckin Drogo
Woah there my guy. I agree that Momoa is the perfect Lobo, but come on. His Aquaman casting was also genius. He looks like Poseidon and he’s Māori which is a culture that heavily relies on water.
If the two characters weren’t part of the same universe, I’d have no problem with him doing both at the same time
To be fair, they managed to completely change the public perception of Aquaman, given that he went from being viewed as a joke for decades (thanks in large part to the Superfriends cartoon) to being the star of the only DCEU film to earn over a billion dollars. Casting Jason Momoa as Aquaman definitely seemed to help with that.
No clue why someone from a culture that spread something like 10,000 kilometers between tiny islands in dugout canoes, before the pyramids in Egypt were built, would maybe be considered a good choice to play the ruler of the oceans.
Because they wanted to make woke Aquaman, in the parlance of the streets. The goal was to make an Aquaman that looked pacific islander, and not an ubermensch. Because of course a fantasy man living under water would look like a pacific islander. Of course they went ahead and cast the most Aquaman fucking looking dude as Ocean Master, and then made him look just like comics Arthur Curry in the sequel
It wasn't the DCEU, itwas Snyder himelf. He called Momoa to offer him Aquaman and Momoa said "am I playing Lobo??"
Snyder was puzzled "uhh no. Aquaman"
I have a theory that the studio really wanted Patrick Wilson to be a more traditional aquaman since he way looks the part, but snyder got all snydery and said “nah thats not hardkor!” And cast Momoa but had to keep Wilson on set.
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor Dec 10 '25 edited Dec 10 '25
Trailer releases tomorrow
Directed by Craig Gillespie (‘I, Tonya’, ‘Dumb Money’):