Last month, after Hollywood A-lister Johnny Depp lost his libel against a British tabloid, he was asked by Warner Bros to step down from the famous Fantastic Beasts franchise as Gellert Grindlewald, which resulted in quite an uproar. The actor took to Instagram and shared that he had respected the request of the production studio and announced his exit from the film.
Soon after the news of him stepping down as the popular villain broke, social media users urged that Amber Heard should too be removed from the Aquaman sequel. A petition soon began on Twitter for the same, to which the actor responded, as she slammed the furore.
According to the actor, the petition has “no basis in reality.” She said, “Paid rumours and paid campaigns on social media don’t dictate [casting decisions] because they have no basis in reality,” she added. “Only the fans made Aquaman and Aquaman 2 happen. I’m excited to get started next year," she had said.
The sequel for James Wan helmed film has been making the news for quite some time. While the first part of the superhero flick was well received by the audience, Aquaman 2 has been slammed for recasting Heard as Mera in the 2022 film, reported Pinkvilla.
After Depp was removed from a few of his prominent films in the wake of his libel case, fans are campaigning to see Heard receive the same treatment. In fact, the petition to remove her from Aquaman 2 is nearing a staggering 2 million signatures. And while Warner Bros has yet to announce any plans to hire another actress for the role, it seems that they’re trying to come up with a compromise.
If rumours are to be trusted, the studio is bringing on another female lead to balance things out. “Some of you are asking re Amber Heard – as I told you before, they are bringing on this new female lead to balance things out, and writing the script so that Heard’s role can be cut down if needed. But as of right now she’s still in Aquaman 2,” a journalist Grace Randolph, the host of the Beyond The Trailer YouTube channel wrote on her Twitter feed.
Last month, it was revealed that Warner Bros may not be able to fire Heard due to her contract. What they can do, however, is find a way to sideline her character in favour of a newcomer in Aquaman 2. To what extent they’ll do so, though, is anyone’s guess at this point.
What transpired:
Earlier this month, Depp lost his libel battle with a British tabloid that labelled him a “wife-beater,” after a London High Court judge ruled that the paper’s allegations were “substantially true.”
In a ruling that could severely damage his reputation and career, Judge Andrew Nicol said he accepted claims by Depp’s ex-wife, that he had violently assaulted her on numerous occasions during their tempestuous five-year relationship. “I have found that the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms Heard by Mr Depp have been proved to the civil standard,” said Nicol, accepting that 12 of the 14 of them had taken place.
Depp, famed for his role in films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands, had sued News Group Newspapers, publishers of The Sun, and one of its journalists, Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article which stated he had been violent towards Heard.
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