In a feature about the upcoming film in Entertainment Weekly, James Wan said that Mera’s diminished role in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was, actually, the plan all along. “I always pitched this to everyone from the get-go,” Wan told the outlet. “The first ‘Aquaman’ was Arthur and Mera’s journey. The second movie was always going to be Arthur and Orm. So, the first was a romance action-adventure movie, the second one is a bromance action-adventure movie. We’ll leave it at that.”
EW does describe the director as seeming “circumspect” about the whole Heard issue, and it’s clear that he’s trying to sell the idea that Orm, the antagonist turned ally played by Patrick Wilson, was always going to be the focus of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” The trailer does show Orm and Arthur teaming up to save Atlantis and the world at large as a villain named Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) emerges with the dangerous Black Trident, determined to destroy Aquaman and his family. Mentioning in the trailer that Arthur is now husband and father — roles which both involve Mera heavily — and declining to show her in any real way feels like a specific choice, though — and it could, sadly, be related to Heard’s string of bad press after her legal troubles.
