'Hot Take': Johnny Depp, Amber Heard's trial is getting its movie adaptation

The controversial defamation case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is the subject of a new movie, Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial, set to debut exclusively on the free Tubi streaming service, reported Variety. According to the publication, the film stars Mark Hapka as Depp and Megan Davis as Heard. It’s set to premiere Friday, September 30, 2022.

Melissa Marty will join Hapka and Davis as Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez and Mary Carrig will portray as Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft. Hot Take follows the sour relationship — in and out of court — of Depp and Heard, unravelling the two-month defamation trial that concluded on June 1, with the jury announcing its verdict in Depp’s favour and finding that Heard had defamed him by alluding to domestic violence allegations against him in a December 2018 op-ed piece. The jury also held Depp liable for a defamatory statement made about Heard by his lawyer.

The movie was fast-tracked into production by Tubi and MarVista Entertainment “to capture a timely take on a story that became part of the cultural zeitgeist, painting a unique picture of what millions watched play out in the headlines over the summer,” Adam Lewinson, Tubi’s chief content officer, said in a statement.

Back in June, a seven-person jury concluded that Heard intentionally and maliciously defamed Depp when she wrote a 2018 Washington Post op-ed identifying herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse. Depp was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (the judge later reduced the punitive damages to Virginia's statutory cap of $350,000). Heard earned a small countersuit victory of $2 million in compensatory damages.

Heard's team filed to appeal the verdict in July after a motion for a mistrial was denied. "We believe the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment," a spokesperson for Heard said. "We are therefore appealing the verdict. While we realize today's filing will ignite the Twitter bonfires, there are steps we need to take to ensure both fairness and justice." Since then, the actor has hired new legal counsel.