By the time Aquaman was released in 2018, Zack Snyder had already stepped away from the DC Extended Universe, which meant that the films had started to move away from the Snyderverse concept the director had set up. However, Snyder has continued to share tidbits about his vision for the franchise, including the original plans for Aquaman’s tattoos
Zack Snyder on Aquaman
Snyder responded to a social media comment that took aim at Aquaman’s tattoos, which argued that someone who can take an RPG to the chest and emerge unscathed shouldn’t have been able to be inked by a tattoo needle.
“Right, so this concept was developed by me and Jason Momoa before the films were made, to honor his Pacific Islander roots,” Snyder explained. “When Arthur’s father is killed by Black Manta’s father at the end of the first act, Arthur takes his ashes back to his people in the Pacific islands for a ritual cremation. During that grieving ceremony, he receives the tattoos to honor his father’s memory.“
Snyder continued, “Vulko, tasked by his mother to watch over him, provides the Samoan tattoo artist with a special Atlantean needle that can pierce Arthur’s dense skin. The tattoos become a permanent inscription of that loss and identity, bridging his Pacific Islander heritage with his Atlantean lineage — and this loss also creates the blood feud between Arthur and Black Manta that drives the larger conflict.“
Some of Snyder’s ideas did end up in Aquaman, but the film ultimately charted its own course under the direction of James Wan. Personally, I found Aquaman to be a lot of fun, and the film stands as the most successful among all the DCEU movies, grossing over $1.1 billion worldwide. The sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, didn’t quite hit the same.
The Last Photograph
Snyder is currently in post-production on The Last Photograph, a drama thriller starring Stuart Martin and Fra Fee. The film follows “an ex-DEA operative who must return to the mountains of South America in an effort to find his missing niece and nephew, following the brutal murders of their diplomat parents. Enlisting the help of a washed-up junkie war photographer, the only person to have seen the face of the killers, he sets out, determined to find the children and the truth, but soon learns he must also face the ghosts of his past. Their journey into the unknown takes them further and further away from civilization, bringing into question everything they believe, while slowly eroding the distinction between real and surreal.” It doesn’t have an official release date yet.
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