A month from now, the upcoming DC movie Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will finally be playing in theaters, putting Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry back on center stage for the first time in five years (though we of course have seen him during that period in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the Peacemaker Season 1 finale). Unfortunately, Arthur may have a lot of tragedy coming his way in the sequel. In addition to it being rumored that Aquaman 2 will feature the death of Arthur’s infant son, the new trailer for The Lost Kingdom might point towards his father perishing as well, which fans have been speculating might happen.
As seen in the above preview, there’s a part where Aquaman arrives at the burning remains of his father’s home. Thomas Curry, reprised by Temuera Morrison (one of the many members of The Lost Kingdom’s cast) informs his son that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta took “Junior,” i.e. Arthur’s son/Thomas’ grandson, as Manta needs the child, who has the royal bloodline within him, for his sinister plan. Thomas also looks severely injured, so one of two things could happen. One, it might be possible for Arthur or his mother, Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna, to get Thomas down to Atlantis so he can be treated with the underwater kingdom’s advanced technology. Two, his injuries prove fatal and he dies after informing Arthur about what happened to the baby.
To be fair, Thomas Curry dying would be unprecedented. Shortly after the first Aquaman movie was released, I speculated that he might not be safe in the next movie given DC Comics’ New 52 mythology. In the revamped continuity that lasted from 2011 to 2016, Black Manta came to Thomas’ house to secure a sample of Arthur’s blood on behalf of Dr. Stephen Shin. Thomas came face to face with the helmeted villain and tried to protect his son, but suffered a heart attack in the process and died a few days later. A vengeful Arthur then tracked down Manta to kill him, only he realized that he accidentally killed Manta’s own father instead, thus igniting their feud.
Given that this is a year where we watched Barry Allen’s mother Nora being fatally stabbed in The Flash and Jaime Reyes’ father Alberto suffer his own fatal heart attack in Blue Beetle, I wouldn’t be shocked if Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom follows suit and kills off Arthur Curry. Again, this would be pulled directly from the source material, and since Aquaman revealed that Atlanna was still be alive, I don’t see her dying for real in The Lost Kingdom. Frankly, I also put more stock in Thomas dying over the baby being killed by Black Manta, even though that hails from the comics too. Showing the demise of an infant in a PG-13 superhero movie would arguably be too intense, but permanently taking his dad off the table would be par for the course with these kinds of stories.
We’ll learn what fates holds in store for Thomas Curry when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters on December 20. Meanwhile, stream Aquaman and the other DC movies in order with your Max subscription.
