Get A First Look At Djimon Hounsou's Fisherman King In 'Aquaman' [Updated]
Update: James Wan has shared some interesting information about how this character was brought to life on Twitter.Djimon Hounsou is going to be in every superhero movie soon. Days after the news that Hounsou had joined the Shazam cast hit the web, Warner Bros. is here to remind you that the Gladiator and Guardians of the Galaxy actor had already made the leap from Marvel to DC with Aquaman.
A new image from James Wan's upcoming Aquaman movie has been released to Entertainment Weekly, giving us a first look at Hounsou as the Fisherman King. No, he's not related to the Arthurian legend The Fisher King, though he does wield a pretty similar Golden Trident.
Aquaman Image: The Fisherman King
But wait, how can Hounsou be playing an Atlantean king when Patrick Wilson has been cast as King Orm? That's because, as Wan recently revealed, Atlantis is made up of seven rival kingdoms that split up when the mythic city first sank into the ocean.
"After the fall of Atlantis, some of the kingdoms evolved and some devolved," producer Peter Safran explains to EW. "This is one that evolved. This is a kingdom that's primarily artistic and cerebral, with poets and philosophers."
Along with a love for poetry and philosophy, residents of the Fisherman Kingdom look a lot more like...well, fish. The Fisherman King, the Fisherman Queen (Natalia Safran) and Princess (Sophia Forrest) on the left, and a royal guard on the right all have mermaid tails instead of legs.
Hounsou looks virtually unrecognizable as the Fisherman King, clad in golden armor and a combination of practical and CGI effects designed to make him look more fish than human. As unreal as this characer looks, Wan confirmed on Twitter that the top half of this character was brought to life with old school make-up:
But he looks comfortable (or as comfortable as you can be) in the role, having made the rounds in the superhero genre — first as the Kree mercenary Korath the Pursuer in Guardians of the Galaxy, and soon as a 3,000-year old sorcerer from Ancient Egypt in Shazam. Now the only superhero cinematic universe Hounsou has left to conquer is Sony's Venom-verse. And there's always a part in Spawn.
Aquaman opens in theaters on December 21, 2018.