Momoa carries ‘Aquaman’ to success

Dillan Schorfheide, Assistant Sports Editor

‘Aquaman’ has seen great success since its box office debut.

According to the New York Times, the movie’s foreign and domestic sales total to $940.7 million coming into this week.

What makes it more impressive is how it has done so well, compared to most of the recent DC Comics movies.

DC has been getting its butt kicked in theaters compared to Marvel, and everyone knows that.

‘Aquaman’ producers, directors and writers had two very important challenges to overcome to make the sea-dwelling hero relevant and to help DC have some success. First, recent DC failures could have put momentum against the movie.

Second, who even cares about Aquaman?

You do not need to know a thing about his history or comics because plenty of television shows make fun of how useless he is made out to be.

I have no stake in the Marvel vs. DC rivalry; I do watch far more Marvel movies, but I do not have anything against DC. I just love X-Men.

But I will be comparing this movie to Marvel movies because, let’s be real, Marvel has set the standards for superhero movies.

I would argue that a big factor in why the Marvel movies do so well is the acting.

You have a pretty selfish billionaire who does not show much emotion in the movies, so Robert Downey Jr. is your man for the part. You have a regular Jo Schmo who becomes a hero that can be as big as a plane or the size of an ant, who is also pretty comical, so Paul Rudd is the guy.

I have admittedly only seen two DC movies (‘Aquaman’ and ‘Wonder Woman’), but public feedback is enough to help me break this down.

I have no clue who plays Superman and I have no desire to find out who they are (by the way, it is Henry Cavill). Ezra Miller plays Flash in the ‘Justice League’ from 2017, and who is he?

And we all know Ben Affleck too much. Seriously DC, the best you could get for Batman is him?

But DC finally got something right and cast the perfect actor to play Aquaman: Jason Momoa (aside from Gal Gadot. She slayed her role as Wonder Woman in the movie).

It turns out Momoa is not just eye candy that the director thought would help keep the female demographic sitting in its seats. No, he makes Aquaman a cool guy.

I would say he played the part like Paul Rudd with Ant-Man.

Both have the witty attitudes that they carry with them even during some fighting, but they can also be serious when they need to be.

But anyone else wielding the most powerful trident in the world would not have pulled this off. If I had to guess, most of the production was done to make sure Momoa was featured as much as possible. The producers could live with some poor aspects as long as Aquaman shined.

And, hey, it worked.

Dillan Schorfheide is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].