Jason Momoa's Arthur Curry waves goodbye (or does he?) in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”

Actor reprises the role of superhero in the last DCEU film.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

The future of the Aquaman franchise has been much-discussed in the lead-up to the release of the now-playing-in-cinemas Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The original movie, 2018's Aquaman, grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, cementing Jason Momoa's status as a movie star and filmmmaker James Wan's reputation as a top-flight blockbuster director. Five years on, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the last movie to be released under the banner of the DCEU, a tarnished brand thanks to such recent box office failures as The Flash and Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

When DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran set out their extensive plans last January for a new and interconnected DC Universe, the pair made no mention of a third Aquaman movie although Safran did say Momoa's character, among others, could be a part of future projects.

Back in September, Wan told EW that making Aquaman 2 "has taken up so, so much of my life, so much of my time, all I can think about now is taking a long break." More recently, Momoa told Entertainment Tonight, "I don’t necessarily want it to be the end... [but] I don’t think it's really, like, a choice." The actor added that Gunn and Safran, who is a producer on the Aquaman films, want “to start their new thing up.”

So will Warner Bros. allow Momoa another lap in a third Aquaman movie? Or will the company leave his water-loving superhero Arthur Curry high and dry? Those hoping to learn more about the future of the franchise by watching Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will be disappointed. Curry's second solo adventure is effectively a standalone movie with no real connection to previous DCEU movies and seemingly little interest in laying the groundwork for future adventures beyond keeping most of the core characters alive.

Wan's film opens with Curry's King of Atlantis now married to Amber Heard's Mera, with whom he has a son, and once again facing off against Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's vengeance-seeking Black Manta. The latter has received a weapons upgrade courtesy of an ancient evil, ultimately revealed to be the monstrous, frozen-in-ice Kordax. Aquaman teams up with his half-brother, Patrick Wilson's Orm, and the pair ultimately defeat both Black Manta and Kordax, with help from Mera, Nicole Kidman's Atlanna, Dolph Lundgren's King Nereus, the John Rhys-Davies-voiced Brine King, the octopus Topo, a giant seahorse called Storm, and a lot of whales.

In May 2022, Heard claimed that her role in the superhero sequel had been "pared down" as the result of the publicity surrounding the actress' breakup with Johnny Depp. In EW's September interview with Wan, the director insisted that the second Aquaman movie "was always going to be Arthur and Orm."

Regardless, Heard's role in the film, if not large, is significant. Like nearly all the characters, Mera also lives to fight another day. Indeed, the only casualty among the film's heroes is Willem Dafoe's Vulko, who dies off-screen from illness, Dafoe being unable to reprise the role partly because of scheduling issues. While the film offers no concluding cliffhanger, the movie ends in a fashion which leaves an almost full-complement of goodies available to be deployed in any third outing for the franchise.

The film does have another notable absence. In July of this year, The Hollywood Reporter published an article which claimed the director had been forced to separately film footage of Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton for a planned appearance by Batman in the film, because of the changes in the Warner Bros. release slate. In fact, Batman does not appear in the finished film at all, a fulfillment of Wan's promise to EW in September that his film would have little to do with the other DCEU movies.

"At the end of the day, the best thing I would say about this movie is that it is not connected in any way to any of those films," the director said. "That's the bottom line."

Even the film's final mid-credit sequence keeps matters within the Aquaman family. The scene extends an earlier moment in which Wilson's Orm tries a hamburger for the first time. In the return to the sequence, Orm adds a living cockroach to his sandwich, Momoa's character having earlier convinced him that land-dwellers regard roaches as a delicious treat.

Whether the real-life Momoa can be equally convincing about the need for DC Studios to back a third Aquaman adventure remains to be seen.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is now screening in cinemas.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• Jason Momoa is back in first Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom teaser

• Aquaman stars celebrate end of filming sequel with waterworks in behind-the-scenes photo

• Nicolas Cage on his Superman cameo in The Flash: 'Glad I didn't blink'

• Aquaman himself will host Shark Week

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.