SDCC 2018 Recap: 6 Things We Learned From WB’s DC Panel

This afternoon, Warner Bros. took to the Hall H stage at San Diego Comic Con to showcase their upcoming projects. First up, a new trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was unveiled. Then, new footage from The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part was shown off (it won’t be online), followed by our first look at Godzilla: King of the Monsters. From then on, it was all DC, with first looks at footage from Wonder Woman 1984 (also won’t be online), Shazam! and Aquaman.

As is Comic Con tradition, directors and actors from each film took to the stage to discuss their films. Here are 6 of the DC-related highlights we took away from today’s panels.

Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot and Chris Pine discussed Wonder Woman 1984. Jenkins touched upon the film’s 1980’s setting, saying “One of my favorite things about making the original was that it took place during World War I in 1917, an era full of metaphors like modernity and the mechanized world. I grew up in the ’80s, and this has its own look and feel. The reason I am excited is it showed mankind at its best and worst. It was grand and wonderful, there was great music and there were elegant and beautiful things. But other things about the decade revealed the worst of us. To have Wonder Woman in that period of time that was us at our most extreme, is wonderful.”

Gadot added 1984 isn’t really a sequel, it’s it’s own animal, saying “It’s not a sequel. It’s it’s own story, it’s a different chapter, it’s a whole new movie.”

Guinness in hand, Shazam! star Zachary Levi expressed his enthusiasm for playing the titular hero. He said playing Shazam is “complete wish fulfillment” for him, adding “The whole movie’s about wish fulfillment.”

Levi described the challenges of playing a character who is a child in an adult’s body. “When he says ‘Shazam!’ and turns into me, I’m still him, just me. Glad we went through that. But I still have to play it like this knucklehead,” He then gestured to Asher Angel, his child actor counterpart, adding “It’s difficult. The way he poses sometimes is so Asher Angel.”

Aquaman director James Wan expressed his desire to make the film stand out amongst the crowded superhero film market. “I want our film to be a little bit different, a little unique” among the myriad superhero movies out now.” Wan said it plays more along the lines of a sci-fi fantasy film than a superhero one. Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa added “It’s a beautiful origin story.”

Aquaman‘s Nicole Kidman described the moment we first meet her character in the film. “My opening shot in the film is being washed up on this rock, and I got to lie there with massive waves crashing over me, and I’m thinking, ‘The bigger the better, come on James, give it to me! That’s why I’m doing this movie.'”

And for a bonus bullet point, the 2 and a half minute Aquaman trailer that’s online wasn’t the only footage from the film those in attendance at Hall H were able to see. The exclusive footage included Aquaman and Mera (Amber Heard) walking through the desert in search of Atlantean ruins, Atlanteans riding seahorses, sharks, and other sea creatures into battle, and appearances from Kidman, Patrick Wilson, and Willem Dafoe’s characters. But perhaps the most notable bit was the last shot, where Aquaman is seen sporting his classic orange and green-scaled costume.

Aquaman hits theaters on December 21st, 2018. It stars Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ludi Lin, Patrick Wilson, and Nicole Kidman. James Wan directs from a script by Will Beall and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.

Shazam! hits theaters on April 5th, 2019. It stars Asher Angel, Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Grace Fulton, Jack Dylan Grazer, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans, Faithe Herman, and Djimon Hounsou. David F. Sandberg directs from a script by Henry Gayden.

Wonder Woman 1984 hits theaters on November 1st, 2019. It stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal. Patty Jenkins directs from a script that she wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham.