Skip to main content

From desert to ocean: 'Aquaman' gets the 'Mad Max: Fury Road' stunt team

aquaman
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Warner Bros. Pictures’ superhero universe has had some difficulty winning over critics and audiences to the same degree as Marvel Studios’ cinematic endeavors, but the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad studio is apparently looking in the right places for help with some of its upcoming projects.

An Australian television news network reports that one of the primary stunt teams for Mad Max: Fury Road has been hired to work on WB’s upcoming Aquaman movie, set to be directed by Furious 7 filmmaker James Wan. The television news report features some footage of stunt coordinator Keir Beck and his team practicing for the project, which began pre-production in Queensland, Australia, in November and is expected to begin filming sometime in 2017.

Indicating that his team will contribute “general stunt skills and fighting,” Beck told Australia’s 9 News that “if there is water sequences, obviously being capable and competent in water” will be a requirement, too. That last part seems like a pretty good bet, given that the film focuses on DC Comics’ aquatic hero.

Although the Academy Awards have yet to add a category for stunt choreography — much to the annoyance of stunt performers — Beck’s team shared a Screen Actors Guild Award last year for stunt work in Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie that was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won in six categories. Beck served as a stunt coordinator or assistant stunt coordinator on multiple films over the years, including 2016’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge and noir comedy The Nice Guys.

Directed by Wan from a script created by Wan, Will Beall, and Geoff Johns, Aquaman casts Game of Thrones actor Jason Momoa as the titular, sea-dwelling superhero. The film is reportedly set after the events of the upcoming Justice League movie that will bring together many of the studio’s live-action DC Comics superheroes and will also feature Watchmen and The Conjuring actor Patrick Wilson as Orm, Willem Dafoe (Spider-ManPlatoon) as Vulko, and Amber Heard (Machete KillsThe Ward) as Mera.

Aquaman is scheduled to hit theaters October 5, 2018.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Three Thousand Years of Longing review: George Miller takes a left turn off Fury Road
Idris Elba pleads with Tilda Swinton.

To what magic lamp, monkey’s paw, or wishing well does George Miller owe his career of improbable dream projects? On and off for decades, this Aussie writer-director and demolition derby-ist has wrangled bountiful resources in pursuit of offbeat glory, splurging top studio dollar on dubiously “family-friendly” menageries and increasingly elaborate dystopias. The pinnacle of his talent for turning a multiplex investment into a madman’s sandbox is, of course, his last movie, the staggering Mad Max: Fury Road, which was essentially a vision of what summer movies can be when made by real artists left to their own lunatic devices. What an impossible movie it was — and a tough act to follow, too.

So how has Miller followed his exhilarating epic of dirt, dust, fire, speed, and mayhem? As it turns out, with a change of pace. His new movie, Three Thousand Years of Longing, is at once vaster and more compact than his last one, trading an endless stretch of desert for a hotel room; a few days of action for a story that literally spans millennia; and a nonstop barrage of vehicular carnage for extended scenes of two characters in bathrobes, politely discussing the true nature of desire over tea and chickpea treats. And yet here, too, is an impossible movie — a strange and bewitching fairy tale for adults, unfashionable in its cerebral whimsy and mid-budget wizardry. You could say that the success of Fury Road paid for this more idiosyncratic fantasy, but that would be akin to arguing that Miller sold a unicorn to buy a leprechaun.

Read more
3 sci-fi movies on Peacock you need to watch in October
Jeff Goldblum in The Fly transforming into a human-fly hybrid creature.

The month of October isn’t just about cramming as many horror movies as you can into your days and nights. There are other genres that are just as fitting, from psychological thrillers to intense dramas, and even sci-fi. Some of the best sci-fi movies, in fact, teeter the line between sci-fi and horror, quenching your need for creepy content.

There are three sci-fi movies on Peacock this month that you need to watch in October. All are new to the streaming service, and they hail from two of the best decades for the genre: the '80s and '90s. Travel back in time with a Jeff Goldblum classic, feast your eyes on the story of a killer car, or revisit high school life with teenage witches brewing something bad.

Read more
The most underrated horror sequel of this century is finally streaming again on Max
A group of people gather in Doctor Sleep.

In terms of traumatic childhoods, few movie characters have ever had it as bad as Danny Torrance. The young psychic child at the center of The Shining is not only relentlessly preyed upon one winter by the malevolent ghosts of a haunted hotel, but he and his mother are also nearly killed by his ax-wielding father. He experiences so many unimaginable horrors over the span of just a few months that one can't help but feel both relief and concern for him when The Shining ends.

Danny's traumatic time at the Overlook Hotel fittingly haunts writer-director Mike Flanagan's Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, the film attempts to bring the story of Dan Torrance (played as an adult by Ewan McGregor) to a close. In doing so, it ends up telling a very different tale than its revered predecessor. If The Shining is about the dangers of alcoholism and male rage, then Doctor Sleep is about how children survive abuse in a world that seems intent on tamping them down and stealing their "shine."

Read more