It's official: Furious 7's James Wan to direct both AQUAMAN and ROBOTECH!

Once upon a time, James Wan was a guy who only made small-budget scary movies (see Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious, etc). And then came Furious 7. Now the only thing scary about James Wan’s filmography is just how much damn money he’s going to bring in at the box office. Especially since his next two major directing gigs could potentially be some of the biggest blockbusters of the next few years.

After weeks of rumours, THR have now confirmed that Wan has signed on the dotted lines to direct both Warner Bros/DC Comics’ Aquaman solo movie (which he will also co-write with Kurt Johnstad), as well as a live-action feature film adaptation of classic fan favourite anime Robotech.

Aquaman would be a solo effort for Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa’s titular super-heroic king of Atlantis, who is set to be introduced in next year’s Batman v Superman: Horn of Rhinoceros* before featuring heavily in 2017’s Justice League – Part One which will see him officially team-up with the likes of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and more.

Wan is already committed to starting work on The Conjuring 2: The Endfield Experiment later this year, but Warner Bros has only penciled in Aquaman to be released on 27 July 2018, which gives him plenty of time to get cracking on the film (which will be needed given how much CGI work will probably be needed for all the underwater visual effects that will certainly be in the movie). I actually think he’s a fantastic fit for the DC Movie Universe, as he’s already shown us how good he can be at high concept comic book movies with Furious 7, because let’s face it: Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto and friends are just a few capes and some spandex pants away from being superheroes.

And after Wan takes a dip in that ocean, we’ll see him head into outer space with Robotech. As was recently reported, Sony have now taken over the movie rights to the long gestating adaptation, and have announced their plans to fast track the movie into production. Seeing as this is a story about humans fighting giant aliens in outer space using transforming fighter jets and a gigantic battleship that teleported half of a small city into space with it, and therefore will definitely need a lot of post-production effects work, this means that Sony probably need to change the definition of “fast track” to actually mean “in 4 years time” as there’s no way he could fit a movie of this scope in between any of the others.

Whenever Wan does tackle Robotech though, I actually can’t wait to see what he does with this adaptation, as he’s already shown us how good he can be at crazy, explosive sci-fi stories with Furious 7, because let’s face it: Vin Diesel’s Dom Torreto and friends are practically robots and their high-tech cars are just a few sound effects and laser guns away from being transforming Veritech fighters (I’m having the oddest sense of deja vu right now).

So what do you guys think? Is Wan a great pick for these two movies, or would you rather see somebody else? Also, am I the only one secretly wishing that Wan accidentally mashes up the two movies and we end up with Jason Momoa fighting the Zentradi with space-whales and a trident in a transforming fighter jet?

*not the real title

Last Updated: June 4, 2015