Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the highly anticipated sequel to Jason Momoa's first outing as Arthur Curry in the 2018 fim Aquaman from director James Wan. And while many fans thought that we would be getting our next look at Arthur in 2022 (especially with the DC Comics teaser video that showed what was up next for the franchise in 2022). But today, it was announced that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has officially been pushed to 2023.
According to Variety, the film was pushed due to COVID-19 related production delays in the visual effects department. The film moved from a Christmas release date in 2022 to a March 17, 2023 release date. While it is not a huge push, it does mean that we will not be getting a big look at Aquaman this year.
It's been a while since we've seen Arthur in a larger format. With the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, we got a deeper look into the introduction of Arthur/Aquaman but that was the last film appearance we saw from him since COVID delayed filming and shooting many of the DCEU movies we've been excited to see. That's not to say we didn't have any of Momoa as Arthur in 2022. In fact, we just had a great moment on Peacemaker between Aquaman and John Cena's Chris Smith when the Justice League show up too late to help Peacemaker stop the Butterflies and Peacemaker makes a comment about Aquaman's uh...sleeping arrangements with the fish. So we got a brief look at Arthur again but we want more!
It isn't surprising that we're still seeing release date pushes due to COVID delays. While there were many movies already finished and ready for release, others were delayed from the inability to film and so having everything continually pushed back is going to be the future for a while. It did seem promising that everything would hold up, especially with the most recent release of Warner Bros.' The Batman but a shift to finish out the movies and their CGI work unfortunately makes a lot of sense.
So, we will have to wait until 2023 to jump back into the world (or ocean) of Arthur Curry but until then, we still have plenty of other DCEU coming our way. So maybe we still will get a chance to see Momoa's Aquaman this year. If not, what's a better way to celebrate spring than with Arthur Curry?