Fans have surely seen enough of Jason Momoa’s most badass roles to know what a talented actor he is. However, Chief of War (which will be streamable with an Apple TV+ subscription) will have the Aquaman actor bring his A-game as a director as well. While helming the 2025 TV schedule entry, Momoa had to deal with a number of major variables. That included a volcano, which Momoa accurately predicted would erupt amid production.
A lot of unexpected things can happen when a TV show or movie is being filmed. However, I'd like to think that very few people can say that had to worry about volcanos going off. While speaking with Jake’s Takes' Jake Hamilton, Jason Momoa recalled just how sure he was that there'd be an eruption as well as the lead-up to the actual event:
First off, my intuition, when we wrote this [show], I told my partner, the volcano’s gonna go off. Then, I took a fucking picture next to the calendar on the day we were gonna shoot, and I wrote, ‘Boom!’ And I smiled, and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ No one believed me. Then, we drove through, between Mauna Loa. We’re driving home, and I said to my other partner, Brian Mendoza, I go, ‘Oh, this thing’s gonna go off. I know it. And, about four hours later, at 3 a.m., we get a call from our line producer, going ‘Mauna Loa just went off,’ which has been years – a decade or more since it went off.
Chances are that, like me, you probably have just one question -- how could Momoa have known that?! Could it have been a director’s intuition? Or maybe it was Momoa's experiences growing up the Hawaiian islands that informed his thinking. Whatever the case, kudos to him for making yet another perfect prediction. For those who don't know, Momoa previously predicted that Dune would change his career, which also proved to be true.
Chief of War could also impact Jason Momoa's career, and the historical drama miniseries sees him play the warrior Kaʻiana. As part of the show, Momoa and his co-stars ran “half-naked” in battle scenes, and the eruption of Mauna Loa actually helped add to the proceedings. Crazy enough, the Game of Thrones actor spoke about another surprising element that benefited the shoot, and talk about a major coincidence:
Mauna Loa went off. We wait a day, because no one’s ever worked with a volcano, going off or like air quality. I mean, are we safe? They do all the surveys, we have all the specialists come in. We’re safe to shoot the next day. We shoot the next day [and] fucking Kīlauea goes off. Two volcanos – never in written history have two volcanos gone off at the same time.
Just when Momoa thought luck came to him in the form of a volcano eruption, another one went off. Only in Hawaii, right? As Momoa is reportedly directing (at least) the season finale, it may be in that episode that which viewers get to see the epic effects of both volcanoes doing their thing.
A common tradition when shooting in Hawaii is to say a blessing to appropriately ask permission to film on the tropical land and for protection. That was done during NCIS: Hawai'i's filming and amid production onMagnum P.I. Season 5. In the case of Chief of War, Jason Momoa and the rest of the cast and crew’s prayers were answered in a big way:
It rains right when we start, when we do our prayers, it rains. Then it stops for eight days. We shoot the whole time, and then the moment we stop, it rains, and the volcano stopped eight days later.
Aside from dealing with the elements, Jason Momoa had to use his creative muscles to stage the fight scenes. He apparently wanted to ensure his epic battle scenes for that day would look flawless. He even told Jake Hamilton that he shot the scenes in reverse, starting from three in the morning until sunrise, to take advantage of the blue light.
With ash falling on the lava field, Jason Momoa had “five units” shooting simultaneously, which meant having five separate camera crews rolling at once. The Baywatch actor said it was very important for him to shoot his episode, as the Pacific Islander-highlighting series portrays the stories of his ancestors. All the more reason why capturing that eruption was seemingly so meaningful for Momoa.
It’s unbelievable how accurate Jason Momoa’s prediction would be about a volcano going off during shooting. I wish I could've been present to see all of that unfold as well, and I'd hope the case and crew who were will never forget any of that. Of course, fans will be able to see the fruits of the cast and crew's labor when Apple TV+’s Chief of War premieres as part of the streaming schedule on August 1st.
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