In addition to his appearances in Johnson Family Vacation (2004), and Stargate: Atlantis (2005–2009), Momoa was cast as Roman in four episodes of the comedy-drama television series The Game (2009). He portrayed the title protagonist in Conan the Barbarian (2011), a reimagining of the 1982 film of the same name and a role made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Momoa gained his role of Khal Drogo on HBO's Game of Thrones through his audition, in which he performed a Haka,[10] one of many intimidating Māori dances traditionally used to convey a challenge to an opponent, or a welcome to a visitor.[11]
Momoa directed and co-wrote Road to Paloma (2014), an American drama thriller film, together with writers Jonathan Hirschbein and Robert Homer Mollohan. The film stars Momoa, Sarah Shahi, Lisa Bonet, Michael Raymond-James, and Wes Studi.[12] It premiered at the 2014 Sarasota Film Festival in April 2014.[13] The film had a limited theatrical release on July 15, 2014, in New York City and Los Angeles and a VOD release.[14]
In March 2014, Momoa joined the dark comedy/thriller indie Sugar Mountain alongside Cary Elwes and Haley Webb; its principal photography was done in Alaska.[15][16] He also starred as Phillip Kopus, a Ramapough Mountain Indian, on the SundanceTV drama series The Red Road (2014–2015).[17]
In June 2014, Momoa was reported to have been cast in the role of Aquaman. He first played the role in a cameo in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,[18][19][20] marking Aquaman's live action film debut. Momoa played the character in a leading role in the 2017 ensemble film Justice League. He then starred in the Aquaman solo film, which released in late 2018.[21][22][23] He also reprised this role in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.[24]
In 2014, Momoa portrayed Connor in the Canadian horror action film Wolves,[25] and starred in the Sci-fi horror movie Debug; it was written and directed by Momoa's former Stargate Atlantis co-star, British-born Canadian actor David Hewlett. In February 2015, it was announced that he would portray a cannibal[26] in the drama thriller film The Bad Batch.[27] In 2015, Momoa was cast in the Canadian action film Braven, which was released on February 2, 2018.
In early 2017, he signed onto the official Just Cause movie series.[28][29]
Between 2016 and 2018, Momoa portrayed Declan Harp in all three seasons of the Canadian historical drama television series Frontier and was an executive producer on the show. The series chronicles the North American fur trade in late 1700s Canada, and follows Declan Harp, a part-Irish, part-Cree outlaw who is campaigning to breach the Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly on the fur trade in Canada, which has become corrupt and engages in illegal activities to enrich itself.[30][31]
In July 2018, Momoa was cast for Apple's post-apocalyptic drama series See.[32][33]
In February 2019, Momoa was cast as Duncan Idaho in the Denis Villeneuve film Dune.[34][35]
In February 2020, Momoa appeared in a halftime commercial for Rocket Mortgage for Super Bowl LIV. He also appeared in the teaser for "Scary Little Green Men" by Ozzy Osbourne from his album Ordinary Man.
In January 2022, it was announced that Momoa would join the cast of the tenth Fast & Furious film titled Fast X as the villain, which is produced by and starring Vin Diesel.[36]
In April 2022. it was announced that Momoa will star in the film adaptation of Minecraft, with Jared Hess directing.[
After the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969, its creator Gene Roddenberry began working on other projects, producing scripts and pilot episodes that were shown to various networks, including Genesis II and The Questor Tapes. He began early planning for a project called Battleground: Earth, a science fiction series set in the near future when a group of aliens landed on Earth under a banner of peace.
Twentieth Century Fox expressed interest in producing a pilot episode for the series, but Roddenberry's busy schedule prevented it. When the order for the pilot came in, he was in England filming a TV movie, which was followed by work on the Star Trek films and later the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. When he died in 1991, Battleground: Earth had yet to be produced.
In the mid-1990s, Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, began to develop the project. It went into production with Tribune Entertainment. It was renamed Earth: Final Conflict to avoid confusion with the film Battlefield Earth, which was released around the same time. The success of the show led to the development of one other posthumous Roddenberry project, Andromeda.