In 2006, HBO’s Entourage constructed a operating joke out of a pretend blockbuster. Its fictional film star lands the lead in an Aquaman movie directed by James Cameron, who guest-starred as himself 4 separate occasions. The gag was the premise itself. A blockbuster concerning the man who talks to fish was so clearly absurd that the one place it might exist was inside a comedy about Hollywood delusion. The present’s creator has since stated he couldn’t see any means that film really bought made.
Twelve years later Jason Momoa made it for actual and Aquaman grossed $1.15 billion, the highest-grossing DC movie to that time, which is a well-told story. The one which not often will get informed is that between the joke and the billion, a studio bought reportedly inside weeks of capturing a film during which Aquaman was a serious character, and an actor even tried the costume on. His identify is Santiago Cabrera, and nineteen years later he nonetheless has not performed a superhero.
Why Solely One Actor Was Ever Forged as a Film Aquaman Earlier than Momoa
The movie was Justice League: Mortal, and its director makes the entire thing stranger. Warner Bros. employed George Miller, the Australian filmmaker behind Mad Max, and by October 2007 he had assembled a solid few would have predicted: Armie Hammer as Batman, D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Megan Gale as Marvel Girl, Adam Brody because the Flash, and the rapper Frequent as Inexperienced Lantern. The funds was $220 million, and costumes had been being constructed at Wētā Workshop, the New Zealand results home behind The Lord of the Rings.
Then it fell aside in three phases that often get compressed into one. The Writers Guild strike started on November 5, 2007 and froze the script. When it ended, the Australian authorities denied the manufacturing a 40% tax rebate, ruling it failed the significant-Australian-content check, which stranded a movie constructed round capturing in Australia. Miller stated publicly that the coverage left Australian filmmakers making small movies no one wished to observe. Then The Darkish Knight opened in July 2008, made a fortune with one hero and no shared universe, and Warner Bros. seems to have stopped needing a Justice League. The undertaking was useless by August, reportedly with units standing.
Cabrera’s casting has by no means been confirmed by Warner Bros., and the contemporaneous casting reviews from October 2007 don’t point out him in any respect. What exists is his personal account, given in 2024, and he hedged it himself. “Technically, I used to be Aquaman in 2007 when the author’s strike hit,” he stated. Notice the phrase technically. He did get additional than a cellphone name, describing a visit to Wētā Workshop to attempt the costume on, which made the entire thing really feel actual for a second. Then the lesson he took from it, which is probably the most helpful factor any actor has stated about this enterprise: nothing is actual till you might be standing on the premiere speaking about it.
Why Santiago Cabrera Nonetheless Doesn’t Depend as a Superhero Actor
There may be an apparent objection to make right here, and it deserves a solution quite than a dodge. Cabrera spent two seasons on NBC’s Heroes, a collection whose whole premise is atypical folks discovering superpowers, taking part in Isaac Mendez, a painter who might see the long run in his personal canvases. So how is that not a superhero?
As a result of Isaac by no means behaves like one. He wears no costume, takes no identify, fights no crime, and saves no one. He’s a heroin addict who believed the medicine had been what unlocked the visions, and his arc ends when the villain Sylar murders him and opens his cranium to steal the ability. He’s a person a superpower occurred to, which is the alternative of the job. The remainder of the resume factors the identical means: Lancelot on Merlin, Aramis on The Musketeers, a starship captain on Star Trek: Picard. Loads of style, no cape. And he has stated he would nonetheless take one if it got here round once more, with a choice for enjoying the villain.
The phrase “film” is doing actual work in all this. Aquaman had reached screens earlier than, simply by no means a cinema one. Alan Ritchson performed a younger Arthur Curry, Aquaman’s civilian identify, on Smallville from 2005, and Justin Hartley shot a full Aquaman pilot for The WB in 2006 that the community handed on. Cabrera is the one actor hooked up to a theatrical model who by no means bought to make it.
Try Ritchson as Arthur Curry on Smallville:
Personally, the half that will get me is the timing, and the sincere concession is that Justice League: Mortal might need made issues worse. A $220 million film with an Aquaman in 2009, the character nonetheless a nationwide punchline, might have buried him for an additional decade. However Cabrera tried that swimsuit on in 2007, when Entourage was overtly treating a critical Aquaman film as a joke a couple of delusional actor, and Momoa walked into the identical character seven years later, after a decade of comics had rebuilt him, and cleared a billion {dollars}. Similar trident, similar ocean, fully completely different job. The variable was the last decade.
The strangest half is the place the character sits now. James Gunn has stated he doubts Momoa’s Aquaman is canon within the rebooted DC Universe, the actor has moved over to Lobo, the cigar-chewing alien bounty hunter, and debuted in Supergirl in June 2026. No new actor has been introduced for Aquaman. Which implies that as of proper now, the variety of actors publicly hooked up to taking part in him in a film is again to zero.
Aquaman and Aquaman and the Misplaced Kingdom are each streaming on HBO Max. Who ought to play the DCU’s Aquaman? Tell us within the feedback.