Star Swimsuit Shopping, Because 'Aquaman 2' Is Officially Happening

This weekend marked yet another milestone for Warner Brothers' hit movie Aquaman. After breaking down records held by every DC Extended Universe movie, and a few held by the previous Dark Knight Trilogy, Aquaman is now knocking down records held by Marvel films. Over the weekend, The Little Fish Film That Could passed Iron Man 3 as the high-grossing superhero film internationally. With so much success, it's not a surprise the film is officially getting a sequel. When will Aquaman 2 premiere? The good news is fan have time to practice their diving.

When Aquaman premiered just before Christmas last year, it snatched the box office crown from a crowded derby of would-be contenders in a Star Wars-less landscape. It was also the DCEU's first real hit with both moviegoers and critics since Wonder Woman back in 2017, and the second standalone film featuring any of the Justice League characters to fulfill the potential of the planned franchise universe.

Almost immediately, fans were asking about Aquaman 2. After the quiet scuttling of Justice League 2, the complete reboot of Suicide Squad, and the inevitable recasting of The Batman, a successful film practically guaranteed a sequel. Apparently, Warner Brothers had most of the contracts in place to get a new one rolling, because barely eight weeks after Aquaman's premiere, the sequel is official.

According to Deadline, Warner Brothers is planning to try and swim for the holiday nets again, with a release date of Dec. 16, 2022.

While James Wan has not been signed back as director (yet), the production is doing everything it can to make it a place he'd like to work.

Warner Bros. has tapped frequent James Wan collaborator David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick to pen Aquaman 2. Johnson-McGoldrick co-wrote the $1 billion grossing Aquaman with Will Beall. James Wan and Peter Safran are producing.

This is only one of the Aquaman based films in the works. Along with a sequel, there's also a team tasked with a genre-based spinoff, not unlike what 20th Century Fox had begun doing with The X-Men before being bought up by Disney.

Warners is making The Trench, an Aquaman spinoff... focuse[d] on a beast who is new in DC Comics mythology. He attacks Jason Momoa’s superhero and Amber Heard’s Mera in the pic. That feature will have a horror slant.

Whether or not Aquaman will stay in the December slot remains to be seen. The lack of a Star Wars this past December was a bit of a scheduling fluke, left over from the period in 2015 when Lucasfilm imagined a triumphant return to the Memorial Day box office weekend slot it created back in the 1970s. However, one look at last year's Solo box office numbers may cure this foolish notion.

Though no one has officially said the next Star Wars trilogy would be December releases, Deadline notes the weekend of Dec. 16 already has an "untitled live-action movie from Disney" booked. If it winds up being a new Star Wars, Aquaman may find himself swimming to higher ground and a different spot on the calendar.

Aquaman 2 is booked to arrive in theaters on Dec. 16, 2022.