Warner Bros just dated Aquaman 2 for December 16, 2022. The only other major studio release already booked that weekend is an untitled live action movie from Disney. Christmas Day falls on a Sunday that year, and Illumination Animation has an untitled film that’s set to open on Wednesday, December 21.

Earlier this month, Deadline reported that Warner Bros tapped frequent James Wan collaborator David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick to pen the sequel. Johnson-McGoldrick co-wrote Aquaman with Will Beall. James Wan and Peter Safran are producing.

Aquaman has grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, becoming the highest grossing DC film of all-time for WB, beating The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08B). Close to $333M of that figure was minted in the U.S. and Canada.

Warner Bros and DC are also mounting a spinoff titled The Trench, which is being written by newbie screenwriters Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald. It will have a horror-pic slant centered on The Trench, a relatively new creature in DC Comics mythology who appeared briefly in the first film attacking Jason Momoa’s superhero and Amber Heard’s Mera.

It will be produced by Wan and Safran, cost less to make than Aquaman and not involve any of the original’s key cast including Momoa or Heard.