The news surrounding the upcoming comic book flick, Aquaman 2, is starting to trickle in slowly, and even though the details are still pretty scarce actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen has recently communicated his excitement about returning to the underwater DC world.

"We have a date of December 2022. Hopefully, that will hold. Black Manta will be back - I feel confident in saying that. I'm excited to step into that world again and cause some more trouble. I really want to add more personality and more character to David Kane and flesh him out in Aquaman 2 and give him more of a journey."

Though Yahya Abdul-Mateen II does not divulge very much information at all regarding the plotting of the upcoming sequel, he does confirm that his villainous character, Black Manta, will be back to once again sport his giant, bug-eyed helmet and fire red laser beams at Jason Momoa's King of Atlantis, Aquaman. Even though he can't give us much in the way of details, the actor does state his excitement about returning as the sequel gives him the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the Black Manta character, which does suggest he will play a bigger role in Aquaman 2, perhaps even being the main adversary.

Though the first movie was something of a flawed outing, it was well-received by both critics and audiences alike, currently standing at 65% and 75% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes. Other than Momoa's charismatically gruff lead performance, and the vibrant CGI spectacle, Abdul-Mateen's Black Manta was an obvious highlight, with the actor managing to bring a sullen endearment to the role despite being the secondary villain. So, getting more of both Abdul-Mateen and the red-eyed Black Manta can only be a good thing, and bodes well for the much-anticipated Aquaman sequel.

The first Aquaman introduced us to Black Manta, somewhat tragic origin and all, as well as showing us the beginnings of the character's personal vendetta against Jason Momoa's Arthur Curry aka Aquaman. Other than that though, we did not get to see too much behind the black suit and overly large helmet. What the first movie did do though is clearly set up Black Manta as a continuing threat going forward, as a post credits shows Abdul-Mateen's David Kane meet Randall Park's Dr Stephen Shin, a marine biologist obsessed with finding the lost city of Atlantis. The two look to be scheming against the underwater hero, and will no doubt be collaborating in the sequel, which will hopefully allow Abdul-Mateen plenty of time to go into greater depth with Black Manta.

We will have to wait a little while to see how much Abdul-Mateen's Black Manta will play into the Aquaman 2 proceedings, as the film is not set for release until the end of 2022. This comes to us from Entertainment Weekly.