'Aquaman and the Lost Kindgom' has wrapped, but James Wan says there's still a long way to go

Back in June of last year, director James Wan revealed the start of production on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Now, more than six months later, production has finally wrapped, and the director is both celebrating and gearing up for a long post-production process on the DC Comics blockbuster. 

On Wednesday, Wan shared a photo to his Instagram account in which he posed with Aquaman stars Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson on a beach, surrounded by crew as they packed up equipment, and announced that it was "finally, finally, finally picture wrap on the last day" of the sequel. The post comes a little more than a month after Momoa posted a video to his own Instagram from Hawaii, in which he announced he'd finished filming on the islands. That wasn't the end of the end of production, though. After shooting in the United Kingdom and Hawaii, Wan and crew moved back to California to finish the shoot in Malibu, finally hitting their last day earlier this week. 

"A THOUSAND THANK YOUs to all the incredible crew who worked so hard and tirelessly on this picture," Wan wrote in his Instagram post. "Especially the UK portion where we shot 95% of the film. Truly some of the finest artisans and craftspeople I’ve had the good fortune to work with. And big shout-outs to the amazing Hawaiian and Los Angeles units.

"I have a very long way to go before it will be ready, but I can’t wait to share this little film with you all."

First announced in the weeks after Aquaman became a runaway hit during the holiday season of 2018, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom reunites much of the original film's cast -- including Momoa, Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison, and more -- for a new adventure that will take Arthur Curry even deeper into the seven kingdoms of the world's oceans. We still don't know that much about the film's plot, but in his post celebrating the start of the shoot last year, Wan showed off a slate featuring the name "Necrus," a reference to a dark kingdom in DC Comics lore that could be the "Lost Kingdom" of the sequel's title. Wan has also teased that Mario Bava's 1965 sci-fi horror classic Planet of the Vampires is a major influence on the film, so expect to get a little spookiness peppered in with all the superhero fun, much as Wan did with the creatures of The Trench last time around. 

“The first movie took a lot of people by surprise, right? And that's partially because they were not familiar with the comic book, which deals in this very lurid, strange world,” Wan said back in August. "People were taken aback that I didn't throw all that stuff away and make a dark, heavy film. But I didn't feel that would have been right for it. So with the second film, I feel it will be easier for people to accept where we go because I've already laid the foundation."

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters December 16, almost four years to the day after the original film.