Over a billion dollars at the box office. Sprawling undersea battle sequences with warrior sharks and a Julie Andrews-voiced kraken. That fan-favourite drumming octopus. It’s fair to say that Aquaman’s solo debut on the big screen was no damp squib – instead it was a rollicking deep-sea dive into DC’s subaquatic fantasy realm, with Jason Momoa bringing briny brawn to a classic comic book character. Now, he’s back as the King Of Atlantis – and reunited with director James Wan – for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, the sequel aiming to go bigger, better and wetter. Tridents at the ready.

The new issue of Empire takes a world-exclusive plunge into the long-awaited return of Aquaman himself, Arthur Curry, getting the down-low from filmmaker Wan on a blockbuster that’s oceanic in scale. This time Arthur is forced to team up with his villainous half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) to avert impending disaster. His nemesis Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is on the warpath. Plus, Arthur is a dad now to a baby boy, and has officially taken up the mantle as Atlantis’ mollusk-managing monarch. Talk about responsibility. In a major new interview, Wan talks Empire through the film’s horror-inflected design touch-points, its unexpected buddy-comedy DNA, Arthur’s new fatherly responsibilities – and the challenges he faced making a DC behemoth while the hierarchy of power on one of Hollywood’s biggest franchises changed before his very eyes. All that, and get ready for plenty of new images and never-before-seen concept art, teasing the visual splendour of this return trip to Atlantis.