Directed by James Wan from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, it stars Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry / Aquaman, who sets out to lead the underwater kingdom of Atlantis and stop his evil half-brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson) from uniting the seven underwater kingdoms to destroy the surface world.

Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Nicole Kidman also star in supporting roles.

Several vendors provided visual effects, ranging from high-detail hair simulations to the creation of CGI animals and locations.

When Atlantean soldiers sent by King Orvax (the ruler of Atlantis) arrive for Atlanna, who fled her arranged marriage, she is forced to leave her family to protect them from her people.

Vulko urges him to find the Trident of Atlan, a powerful artifact of Atlantis' first ruler, to reclaim his rightful place as king.

Randall Park portrays Doctor Stephen Shin, a marine biologist obsessed with finding the lost city of Atlantis.

[11][non-primary source needed] Julie Andrews provides the voice of Karathen, a mythical sea monster and keeper of the Trident of Atlan who allies with Aquaman.

In 2004, FilmJerk.com reported that Sunrise Entertainment's Alan and Peter Riche planned to bring Aquaman to the big screen for Warner Bros., with Robert Ben Garant writing the screenplay.

[38] On January 13, 2016, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Amber Heard had entered negotiations to play Mera;[10] her casting was confirmed two months later.

[54] A majority of the film was shot at Village Roadshow Studios in Gold Coast, Queensland, with additional production in Newfoundland, Sicily and Morocco.

Two-time Academy Award winner Charles Gibson (Babe and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) and Kelvin McIlwain (Fast & Furious franchise) served as overall visual effects supervisors.

[67] Two thousand three hundred visual effects shots (VFX) appear in the movie, completed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Base FX, Rodeo FX, Scanline VFX, DNEG, Luma Pictures, Weta Digital, Moving Picture Company (MPC), Method Studios, Digital Domain and Clear Angle Studios.

For the sequence, the actors were shot in a pool of water against blue screen backgrounds with Digital Domain adding CGI extensions, waterfalls, mountains, and dinosaurs in post-production.

For the Sicily fight sequence, the team built the main square of the Italian village and terracotta tiled roof set pieces that were backed with a blue screen.

[71] For the Well of the Souls sequence, Momoa was filmed dry-for-wet and captured on set in rigs that simulated underwater movements, but they ultimately felt restrictive so artists replaced the majority of his performance with a digital body double and added the CGI environment, Karathen and Arthur's free-flowing locks.

They created hard and soft corals by developing a colonization growth system, along with procedural stem and tentacle generation tools.

Artists used a Lego-type approach to layer the environment with a large amount of sand, dust and rocks, all of which would realistically give way to the characters' interactions.

The main sequences produced by them were the lighthouse and its surrounding environment; the "Aquaman" title card that follows the Boston aquarium; Aquaman pushing the submarine to the surface and rescuing the sailors inside; Orm's tidal wave that sweeps away Arthur and Tom, including the rescue and aftermath; Black Manta being paid by Orm for the submarine's delivery; and Arthur and Mera's visit to the Kingdom of the Trench.

[84] In March 2017, before filming, a first look at Aquaman was shown during CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Momoa introducing a video of director James Wan displaying a concept art sizzle reel.

[92] By late August the studio held early test screenings with mixed reactions shared on social media describing the film as good but not great.

[100] The same month, character posters were released for Aquaman, Mera, Black Manta, Ocean Master, King Nereus, Queen Atlanna and Nuidis Vulko.

[107] The film's financial success has been attributed to the studio's marketing plan that attracted a broad demographic (particularly women) through advertising, social media and promotional partners.

[118] Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $260.5 million when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the fifth-most-profitable release of 2018.

[129] During the second holiday weekend, women over 25 rated the film the highest at 84%, with Deadline reporting, "Moms are out-numbering dads in attendance, 52% to 48%, and they're smitten with this DC superhero by a wide gap, 82% to 60%.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Aquaman swims with its entertainingly ludicrous tide, offering up CGI superhero spectacle that delivers energetic action with an emphasis on good old-fashioned fun.

At just the moment this critic's eyes tend to glaze over in superhero movies—typically, as the villain goes nuclear and a portal to another dimension opens, threatening to destroy the planet—Wan unleashes a massive deep-sea battle on par with The Lord of the Rings.

"[144] Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave Aquaman three-and-a-half out of four stars, positively comparing the film to SpongeBob SquarePants in its lack of concern for scientific accuracy, along with praising the treatment of characters crying as "a normal byproduct of pain or joy" instead of "a shameful loss of dignity".

[164] In January 2020, a three-part animated mini-series based on Aquaman was announced,[165] with James Wan set to serve as executive producer, and to premiere on HBO Max.

[165][166][167] Although non-canonical to the wider DCEU,[168] Aquaman: King of Atlantis would be set after the events of Wan's 2018 DCEU Aquaman film, explicitly referencing its events throughout,[169] and feature the voices of Cooper Andrews, Gillian Jacobs, Thomas Lennon, and Dana Snyder respectively replacing Momoa, Heard, Wilson, and Dafoe in their roles.

[177] Safran said he and Wan were approaching the Aquaman franchise similarly to the Conjuring Universe, with spin-offs like The Trench exploring stories about the underwater kingdoms alongside the "mothership" films starring Arthur Curry.