Aquaman was a movie created in a laboratory specifically to delight me. The 2018 DC superhero action film brought us such wonders as Jason Momoa in white linen, Willem Dafoe riding a giant hammerhead shark, and the thrilling Pitbull banger "Ocean 2 Ocean." Everything we’ve heard so far about Aquaman 2 leads me to believe that the sequel will be no different.
Case in point - Pilou Asbaek, that leather-clad pirate king from Game of Thrones I simply could not get enough of, has joined the cast.
As reported by Deadline, Asbaek will appear in an unknown role alongside Momoa’s titular superhero. James Wan is returning to direct, after successfully leading the original film to a global box office cume of over $1 billion. It’s probably safe to assume that Asbaek is portraying a villain, considering the bad guy pedigree he's earned from his roles in Game of Thrones and the Nazi zombie flick Overlord. If I had to guess, my briny gut is telling me he’d be a good choice for Scavenger, an Aquaman villain not unlike Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta. Scavenger is essentially a salvage diver obsessed with stealing Atlantean technology and selling it on the black market, so he’d be a good fit alongside Black Manta and Stephen Shin (Randall Park), who will both presumably be returning for the sequel.
Asbaek is best known for playing Euron “Crow’s Eye” Greyjoy on the hit HBO series, a dude who wanders into Westeros late in the series like he got lost on the way to a different show. Euron was a chaotic scumbag bearing little resemblance to the character from George R.R. Martin’s novels, but I don’t care about any of that, because Asbaek’s performance was so charmingly out-of-its-mind that I couldn’t wait to see what he would do next. If Aquaman 2 doesn’t have him playing Scavenger or some other manner of pirate, I simply don’t know why we even bother making movies.
Aquaman 2 is due in theaters December 2022.