The surprises keep on coming! After yesterday's announcement that Josh Brolin (the MCU’s Thanos) will portray Cable in Deadpool 2, it was announced today that the Aquaman cast has grown a bit. How much? Well, Dolph Lundgren will star in a villainous role, which brings the number of Aquaman antagonists to three. Yahya Abdul Mateen II's Black Manta and Patrick Wilson's Ocean Master had already been confirmed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "˜80's action star is set to portray King Nereus, a fairly new character, whose first appearance was in 2013’s Death of a King arc. Furthermore, he appeared in just five Aquaman comic book issues and in seven issues of DC's Bombshells.
In the comics, Nereus, the king of an exiled group of Atlanteans, clashes with Mera and Aquaman. Most interestingly, Mera used to be a member of this group of rebels. Also in the comics, Nereus allied himself with Ocean Master in order to seize control of the Atlantean throne in the Rise of the Seven Seas arc.
With the limited information we have about Aquaman's first solo outing, we don’t know how big Dolph Lundgren’s role will be. But, based on comic book sources, we can assume that Aquaman and Mera will fight the united forces of Nereus, Black Manta, and Ocean Master. This sounds pretty cool to us.
Add to that the rumors that the movie will also feature Trench, and you’ve got yourself a large-scale underwater conflict. Sure, it would have been even cooler if Dolph Lundgren portrayed Atlan, since this would have given James Wan the chance to present a bit of Atlantean history. But there’s still time.
Aquaman is currently in preproduction, and is scheduled for release on the 21st of December 2018.
