Zack Snyder has shared that they made a significant mistake while filming the underwater scenes with Aquaman for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Advances in underwater filming techniques have improved over the past decade, as demonstrated in recent blockbuster films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. These advancements have been beneficial for upcoming DC movies, including the sequel to Aquaman, titled Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Zack Snyder's work on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice helped pave the way for these techniques, but according to Snyder, it was a learning process.
At a recent screening of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in Pasadena, part of SnyderCin 2023, Zack Snyder and his creative team answered questions during a Q-and-A session. During the session, visual effects supervisor John "D.J." Des Jardin discussed the team's approach to bringing the powers of the Justice League team members to life, many of which were being shown on screen for the first time. Des Jardin revealed that the first scene they shot for the film was Ezra Miller's Barry Allen stopping a convenience store robbery, which involved relatively simple effects with lightning streaks.
Shooting Aquaman with a "dry-for-wet" approach turned out to be a pain in the ass, which is why we ended up shooting it wet. It's been fascinating to see the evolution of Arthur Curry in Zack Snyder's DC films. In Justice League, we saw Arthur and Mera creating air pockets to communicate, while James Wan used visual effects to create the illusion of underwater action. However, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Jason Momoa was actually submerged underwater. Snyder himself admitted that while he was initially excited about this approach, he quickly realized it was a mistake once filming began.
I recall the excitement we had about shooting underwater for the scene, thinking it would be so cool, but it turned out to be the opposite. We shot it in a strange swimming pool in Detroit, and when Jason Momoa arrived, we had to apply all the tattoos on him while he was half-naked. Suddenly, everyone wanted to participate in putting the tattoos on him. It was a weird experience, as we had a green screen set up in the pool. It was definitely a mistake.
However, you learn as you go along. The technology will undoubtedly continue to improve with time, especially with James Cameron's work on the Avatar movies and James Wan's efforts to refine the process in his Aquaman sequel, set to hit theaters in December. We had the opportunity to see some footage from the sequel at CinemaCon in Las Vegas and gave our thoughts on how it looked. We have many movies coming to theaters in 2023 that we're looking forward to.
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