Buckle in for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, as Dolph Lundgren is hyping the sequel to be much better than the original. That is certainly no knock on the original Aquaman, which was released in 2018 to immense success. It stood out as one of the better-received installments of the DCEU with more than $1 billion raked in at the global box office. The movie was a tremendous hit that fans and critics really seemed to love.

That’s all well and good, but Lundgren feels that those same fans will have an even better time watching the upcoming sequel. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lundgren dished some info on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and while he couldn’t offer anything specific, he is suggesting that it is better than the original, in part due to the commitment James Wan has in working on every minute detail.

“That whole picture is just a class act. Everybody from James Wan and Jason Momoa to Amber Heard and the producers. I think this one is better. I think the script is stronger and it’s more exciting. The technology has moved forward in four years, so I was really pleased to be a part of it. James Wan is just going to blow everybody away again by this tremendous world that he creates. He’s involved in every little detail, even every little piece of every weapon, and I think it’s going to be great.”

James Wan returns to direct Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom using a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick; Jason Momoa also contributed to the story. Along with Dolph Lundgren coming back as King Nereus with Momoa returning as Arthur Curry, the sequel stars Amber Heard as Mera, Patrick Wilson as Orm, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, and Temuera Morrison as Thomas Curry. Randall Park, Vincent Regan, and Pilou Asbaek also star.

“Aquaman 2 is very heavily inspired by Planet of the Vampires,” James Wan previously told Total Film. "You can take the boy out of horror but you can never take the horror out the boy. Well, the first movie took a lot of people by surprise, right? And that’s partially because they were not familiar with the comic book, which deals in this very lurid, strange world. People were taken aback that I didn’t throw all that stuff away and make a dark, heavy film. But I didn’t feel that would have been right for it. So with the second film, I feel it will be easier for people to accept where we go because I’ve already laid the foundation."

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is currently scheduled to be released in movie theaters on Dec. 16, 2022. Meanwhile, after revisiting The Expendables franchise for an upcoming sequel with Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone, Lundgren has also teased that a Rocky and Creed spinoff about Ivan Drago could be in the works after recent talks at MGM about the possibility. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.