Aquaman–The series

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Well, score one for my agent, who told me two weeks ago that Warners had pulled the “Aquaman” movie option from the folks who’d been developing it because they were planning to do a “Smallville” spin-off featuring the sea king. Kinda sucks to be the actor who is now going to be recast. Perhaps he can form a support group with Stuart Townsend who was tossed after a week of shooting LOTR for Viggo.

Speculation is abounding as to the title since reportedly it’s not going to be called “Aquaman.” I’m thinking “Miami” isn’t happening. They could go with a watery term like “Depths” or “Waves” or “Tides.” If they want to go for symbolic, they could go with “The Trident” and have an image of a trident be the running visual motif and potential link to his past. Or they could just call it “Arthur,” although that evokes the Dudley Moore film.

Any other thoughts? Serious notions, not the inevitable “Fish Tales” jokes.

PAD

95 comments on “Aquaman–The series”

  2. Why not call a spade a spade, and use the character name right off? “Aquaman, King of the Seas!” strikes a pretty good chord with me.

  3. So the character that appeared on Smallville who was called Arthur Curry and had powers very similar to Aquaman won’t actually be the one that gets a new show? It’ll be a different water-breathing Arthur Curry that never met Clark Kent? Which is OK because this Clark Kent can’t possibly become any version of Superman we’ve ever seen?

    How long before the WB has to have their own Infinite Ultimate House of Crisis maxiseries to clean up their continuity? And can I choose who gets killed off? The villain would be, obviously, Pete Ross, maddened beyond belief at how shoddily he was treated by writers who couldn’t figure out how to use him. I can see it now: Clark holding the body of Lana Lang (who, for some reason, has Supergirl powers this week) and screaming “Nooooo!” while a reasonably-priced pop single plays.

    This could work…

  5. How about Stargate: Atlantis? Arthur could investigate this mysterious circular object that, when turned on, can transport him to new worlds. From there, he can learn more about his origins and the origins of his people.

    What? Is that idea taken already?

  7. Wasn’t there already a show called “The Man From Atlantis”?

    Didn’t last long, as I recall…

  9. I think WB will stay away from using “Atlantis” in the tile in order to avoid any confusion with the Stargate spinoff series.

    Given that is’ the WB, maybe “Arthur’s Creek.”

  10. Considering there’s “Smallville” and the upcoming Superman movie, why would they pull the option on an Aquaman film?

    It seems like they might as well take their chances with both to see what becomes successful.

  12. On Smallville Arthur insisted on being called “A.C.” If they had spun him off instead of starting over, they could have called the show “The A.C.”

    –your pal, Hoy

  13. Ok…how about he has an underwater hotel…”Inn Too Deep”?
    Or, a monster who sells body parts…”Arthur’s Creature’s Pushin’ Hips”?

    I’m spent.

  15. I would love to see a story about a boy who is destined to become King, but to be honest the only reason to watch is too see some shirtless blond hunk every week.

  17. Maybe “The Lighthouse” or something along those lines?

    Maybe they’ll call it “Aqua” to keep the reference, but not use the actual codename?

  18. Ah, I wanted to say “Waterboy”. How about “Young King Arthur”? It’s his name, and he eventually becomes king of Atlantis.

    Or is that too obvious?

    How about, since it’s young Aquaman, “Wet Behind the Ears”?

    Mike Leuszler

  21. I’m going to go against the crowd and offer a couple of “serious notions.” I think something with the word “Currents” in it would work (or maybe just that word alone). And for some reason I think “H2O” would be kind of a neat title. (Of course, that may be because I’m suffering from a bad head cold today and am dizzy and kind of out-of-it! Tomorrow I may remember that idea and think, “Never mind, that sucks.”)

  23. How about “Flow”? Aquaman’s love interest could then be a sassy southern waitress who yells “Kiss my sea-grits”.

    Trace

    (what? too old of a reference?)

  25. If it were me, producer that I am, I would call it From The Depths. Apart from the obvious water reference, it could aklso refer to the emotions involved, wgere they come from, etc.

  27. I’m quite happy they’re recasting, actually. The episode itself was pretty decent. In fact, it’s about the best thing that “Smallville’s” been able to come up with in about two years. But the actor playing Aquaman came off as a creepy combination of Matt Damon and Hitler’s ideal Aryan, and I don’t think I could follow any show which had that dude in the lead.

    As for possible titles, how about “Into the Sea?” It would certainly appeal to all us Cure fans.

  28. the once and future king?
    obviously that makes him sound like
    a descendant of that other arthur
    but whos to say he isnt?
    maybe the atlanteans are part of a curse by morgan le fey?
    i wouldnt close any door
    there are always possibilities

  29. Splash
    King Arthur (drat, someone already beat me to that one)
    Prince Arthur (since this is Young Aquaman)
    Bea Arthur (maybe not)

    Peter David’s Aquaman

    (you’ll have to talk with your agent, and get your agent to convince WB to let you write it, but you know, maybe you’ve already done that…and this is another one of your hypotheticals, such as the one you did about potential FA artists)

  30. Kinda sucks to be the actor who is now going to be recast. Perhaps he can form a support group with Stuart Townsend who was tossed after a week of shooting LOTR for Viggo.

    Yeah, but in some ways he’s also lucky. Townsend would probably have gone down in history as the worst casting mistake Jackson had ever made. Way too young and pretty-boy-ish to be a proper Aragorn, I say.

    As for name ideas … there’s gotta be a good “curry” pun in there, and it would neatly set up the Aquaman/Red Dwarf crossover that’s bound to come in some demented parallel universe.

    TWL

  31. I think that if they want to go with a title that would allude to a location they could just call it “7 Seas”. It’s simple, easy to remember and significant to the character.

    Now PAD, what I really want to know is whether, given that you have what I consider a stellar past relationship with Aquaman, you’d consider working on the show if asked (they did after all hire Joeph Loeb for Smallville).

    Raphy

  32. I’s probably unfortunate for the actor, but unless the casting director takes a blow to the head, probably beneficial for us, as the actor who played Arthur in Smallville was physically a good call, but in terms of, you know, any ability to act, just horrible.

    Serious and nonserious recommendations (taking into account it’s supposed to be set near the Bermuda Triangle, from what I hear, to allow for an equivalent to the meteor-rock stuff in Smallville):
    Undertow
    Strange Tides (Tidings?)
    Strange Waves
    Mysterious Depths
    (Adjective refering to weirdness or the quality of being strange, paranormal, or mysterious) (Noun related to the ocean, Atlantis, aquatic weapon, or male noble rank)
    Of Men And Mantas

  33. Seriously? Peter, you already came up with the best non-Aquaman title for the series…”TIME & TIDE”

  34. I rather like Seven Seas, as suggested above, or Fathoms, if NBC didn’t hold onto that trademark once it retitled what’s now become Surface. Lighthouse, also per a suggestion above, is not bad either, although I wonder if there’d be trademark issues with that one.

    I’d agree that references to Atlantis are right out, and I think references to Arthur are unlikely given the potential for confusion with the Round Table character as opposed to the comics character (although I wouldn’t put it past Gough and Millar to play with those parallels in the series as developed).

    My recollection is that the old Man From Atlantis TV series actually went about two and a half seasons before Patrick Duffy swam off into the sunset (the writers, unfortunately, left about halfway into the second season). For its time, and before the writing imploded, it was actually pretty good.

  35. Evil thought: based on the back story from the Smallville episode, they could also call the Aquaman series Eddystone Light. (Bonus points for anyone who actually gets this joke….)

  36. it cold be risky not not calling it aquaman
    muting its superhero origins might confuse people
    what does it say about the popularity of
    aquaman that they dont want to use the name?
    using smallville
    the producers know thats tied to superman
    but if they call it alantis its both confusing and misleading

  37. Hey! A lot of good suggestions! Here’s some more:

    Dances with Fishes
    Waves of Nausea
    War and Pisces
    Giant-Sized Man-Flipper
    Ocean’s Eleven-Minus-Ten
    You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish
    Beached Boy
    Starfish Trek
    The Man with a Porpoise
    Aqua-Dude
    Poor Man’s Sub-Mariner
    Hope (this Show) Floats
    Sleeping with the Fishes
    Smallville-by-the-Sea
    Deepest Throat
    School of Hard Water
    What’s that I Smelt?
    The Floater
    Raiders of the Lost Shark
    Fish Whisperer

  38. 1 Well..it’s WB so maybe his brother will be in the series also so shouldn’t it be the GILLmore boys.

    If it’s a college drama it could be called SCHOOL.

    Maybe it will be The Prince of Tides. Pappa can you hear me.

  41. I think the Bermuda Triangle will be playing some part in the show, so maybe something playing off of that. The Triangle? Lost at Sea? Maybe something like Atlantis Chronicles, although it doesn’t look like Atlantis has anything to do with it, so maybe The Sea Chronicles or something. Maybe Aquaville?

    I’d love to see PAD involved with the series somehow, even if it’s just to write one episode.

  42. Sure, if it went to series, I’d love to write for it. But I don’t live in LA, so I doubt they’d be interested.

    PAD

  44. Why are you guys even bothering. Nobody is gonna watch this turkey. Seriously. Nobody. You know it too, so don’t delude yourselves.

  45. Well, I know they won’t put any money into it but how about the recent “Sub Diego” storyline and title?

    The amazing thing is that they haven’t learned the “Smallville” lesson, which is that not having the superhero be a superhero hobbles the entire series. At this point, “Smallville” is like “House”. You watch it once and you’ve seen the whole series because it repeats itself so much. Even as I type this “Smallville” is having to find awkward ways to fit in powers and such and ignore the logical step to cape and flight.

    Michael J Norton

  46. ‘it cold be risky not not calling it aquaman
    muting its superhero origins might confuse people’
    ————————————————-
    above words by Gary

    Risky

    to whom? A 30sec trailer would clear up any potential ‘mystery/confusion’…

  47. I think PAD’s “trident” idea is still the best.

    I have zero interest in this project. Unless they plan on continuing to use characters from the DC continuity I see no point to any of this.

    How many episodes before someone leaves him in a desert?

    adly, the general public’s attitude toward AM was pretty much set by Chappelle:
    aquaman to fish: hello fish!

    fish: hi aquaman!

    aquaman: have you guys seen anything suspicious around here?

    fish: hi aquaman!

  48. Um, anyone for Piranha Guy?

    (Sees the hordes of PeterDavid.net react by charging toward him with bats and tire irons…)

    Ow! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I was just joking!!

  49. The amazing thing is that they haven’t learned the “Smallville” lesson

    Uh-huh. SMALLVILLE, on for five plus seasons, and a cornerstone of their programming, and made household names of many of its featured players.

    I think they’ve learned the lesson quite well. Not sure other people have.

  50. Curse you, Vincent J Murphy, for stealing my joke!

    John: Fathom got changed cuz Top Cow (or is it Aspen) has the trademark for that title.

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