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Amber Heard won’t be fired from ‘Aquaman 2’ over ‘fan pressure’

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Updated on August 3, 2021

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Despite continuous pressure from ex-husband Johnny Depp’s supporters, Amber Heard will not be dismissed from the next DC film “Aquaman 2.”

The 35-year-old played Mera in the 2018 superhero blockbuster and will reprise the role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which will be released in December 2022.

Peter Safran, who has worked on numerous Warner Bros. films, including action movies like The Suicide Squad and Shazam!, was interviewed on Deadline’s Hero Nation podcast. He made it clear that the studio would not respond in this manner to “pure fan pressure”

“I don’t think we’re ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure,” Safran told Deadline. “You gotta do what’s best for the movie. We felt that if it’s James Wan and Jason Momoa it should be Amber Heard. That’s really what it was.”

“One is not unaware of what is going on in the Twitter-verse, but that doesn’t mean you have to react to it or take it as gospel or accede to their wishes. You have to do what’s right for the film, and that’s really where we landed on it,” he added.

In the midst of tumultuous divorce proceedings in 2016, Heard accused her now-ex-husband Depp of domestic violence and was granted a temporary restraining order. Los Angeles police examined the accusations at the time and discovered “no evidence of any crime.” Depp maintains his innocence, but Heard claims he assaulted her physically.

Depp fans started a petition to dismiss Heard after the once married pair clashed in the U.K. during Depp’s libel battle against The Sun last year. The court rejected Depp’s suit and decided in favor of the newspaper after it labeled the actor a “wife beater.”

The petition contains 1.8 million signatures and includes unproven accusations that Heard mistreated Depp during their marriage.

The Sun, according to a spokesperson, has “stood up and campaigned for the victims of domestic abuse for over twenty years.” “Domestic abuse victims must never be silenced and we thank the Judge for his careful consideration and thank Amber Heard for her courage in giving evidence to the court,” the spokesperson said.

The petition to dismiss Heard gathered pace when Warner Bros. revealed Mads Mikkelsen will replace Johnny Depp as the evil Grindelwald in “Fantastic Beasts 3.” Depp revealed in an Instagram post on November 6 that he was leaving the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise at the request of Warner Bros.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, Heard addressed the #JusticeForJohnnyDepp movement, saying, ‘Paid rumours and paid campaigns on social media don’t dictate [casting decisions] because they have no basis in reality…

‘Only the fans actually made Aquaman and Aquaman 2 happen. I’m excited to get started next year.’

The Hollywood Reporter reported last year that Depp had written to his sister, producer Christi Dembrowski, to try to get Heard removed from the first “Aquaman” film.

Sasha Wass QC, for NGN, told the court: ‘From the moment Ms Heard petitioned for divorce and for a restraining order, the full brute force of Mr Depp and his PR machine was engaged.

‘Reports appeared in the press suggesting that she was a gold digger. Mr Depp personally set out to damage her career.’

Wass stated that when Depp texted his sister, stating, ‘I want her replaced on that WB film,’ referring to the Warner Brothers film Aquaman, a petition gathered the backing of 400,000 individuals [reported at the time of trial] to have Ms Heard removed from the film.