While Jason Momoa can rest easy following the early massive success of Aquaman, now that it's in theaters, it was no swim in a kiddie pool to create the many underwater sequences in the blockbuster. Momoa and the other actors had to wear a quite uncomfortable rig and harness to replicate underwater movement. As director James Wan recalled:
(Jason) wasn't the biggest fan of the swimming rig we had to put him in. It's not the most comfortable rig for actors. It puts a lot of pressure around the crotch. So for someone like Momoa, who is more than 200 pounds, it's not the most pleasant experience.
It looks like during the filming of Aquaman, Jason Momoa's manhood was on the line due to some painful wire work, and he let James Wan know it. While the harness beat being immersed in freezing cold water during filming in Iceland or maybe the restraint his bladder had to go through while wearing the Aquaman suit, it wasn't cozy by any means. James Wan continued to explain the situation to USA Today with this:
If they are floating around and talking to each other, they have to be harnessed into these rigs. It was a necessity for the film. Jason would to say to me, 'James, I don't think I'll be having more kids anytime soon.'
Aquaman actors Patrick Wilson and Dolph Lundgren also dealt with this struggle and devised a unique way to take away the pain every so often. They would lean forward and spin themselves upside down to take off the pressure in between takes.
Because so many of Aquaman's scenes take place underwater (around two thirds of it), the DCEU film posed to be a significant technical challenge to develop for director James Wan and the cast and crew. For the many underwater scenes, wire work was done with a blue screen behind them and CGI was later added to make it look like they were in water, had floating hair and their clothes moved like they were in Atlantis.
While it sounds like it was quite uncomfortable at the time, the visual results of Aquaman paid off, as the underwater scenes are incredibly realistic and certainly contributed to the success and positive reception of the film. If the visual effects of Aquaman were not thought out, the film could have easily been silly to watch and difficult to be taken seriously.
Aquaman topped the box office during its opening weekend, alongside other popular new releases Mary Poppins Returns and Bumblebee, debuting with $67 million in earnings domestically. The film is one of the few to make $20 million one Christmas Day alone, it is now at $105 million at the domestic box office in total and $556 million worldwide. You can catch the superhero underwater adventure is in theaters.
