Trivia

He is the second director in history to have two films that were not in the same franchise reach a billion dollars at the box office with Aquaman (2018) and Furious 7 (2015). The first director to achieve that feat was James Cameron with Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009).

Member of the unofficial "Splat Pack," a term coined by film historian Alan Jones in Total Film magazine for the modern wave of directors making brutally violent horror films. The other "Splat Pack" members are Alexandre Aja, Darren Lynn Bousman, Neil Marshall, Greg McLean, Eli Roth, Leigh Whannell & Rob Zombie.

He didn't shoot a feature film in his native Australia until Aquaman (2018).

From Malaysia Wan and his family moved to Perth, Australia, when he was seven years old. Wan attended the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

He is the first Asian director to have two films make a billion dollars at the box office.

Met fellow collaborator and friend Leigh Whannell at film school in Australia.

His overall deal at New Line includes an option to develop and produce modest budget science fiction, horror and comedy films via his Atomic Monster production company.

He is the first Australian director to have a film make one billion dollars at the box office.

He is the first Asian director have to a film make a billion dollars at the box office.

He is an avid builder of practical props: Before his directing days, Wan was a professional picture framer and an avid stop-motion animator. During the production of his early Australian indie film Stygian, an actor's hand needed to transform into a spider; Wan crafted the intricate prop mechanism himself.

His unmade film credits: Early in his Hollywood career, Wan was attached to several high-profile projects that never made it to the screen. He was in talks to direct Disney's remake of The Rocketeer and a live-action Robotech film for Sony.

His high-school stop-motion roots: Long before creating the Saw and Insidious universes, his frequent collaborator Leigh Whannell saw a stop-motion animation short Wan made as a teenager. Whannell later recalled that the teenage project had "the fluidity of professional stop motion".

Deeply embedded easter eggs: Because of his close bond with Whannell, Wan often hides "J. Wan" easter eggs in his collaborator's movies. For instance, in Whannell's cyber-thriller Upgrade, you can clearly see James Wan's name on one of the apartment buzzers.

The real horror is in the audio: Wan firmly believes that sound plays a bigger role in scaring the audience than visuals. He frequently states that the real terror lies in sound design, and he agonizes over specific audio frequencies and atmospheric tension to get under the audience's skin.