The DC FanDome brought us a lot of new intel about the upcoming DC movies. Sadly, Aquaman 2 wasn’t too big on giving us anything about the sequel. It’s okay to not know a lot about the sequel just yet because the movie is still more than 2 years away from us. But at the same time, we would have surely liked more information than we ended up getting at the Dome. Now, almost 10 days after the Aquaman panel, we have got something upon the sequel, and it’s related to Amber Heard’s character in the DCEU.
Amber Heard & Johnny Depp have been tussling in the court rooms as back in 2019, Depp had thrown a $50 Million lawsuit against Amber Heard for defaming his name. A lot of information about Heard & Depp met the eyes of the public during this lawsuit. With the kind of abusive behavior that Amber Heard “allegedly” conducted, it was being presumed that her movie career might just be over. People actually started to believe that Heard might be recast in Aquaman 2 as well. But apparently, that isn’t the case just yet.
Deadline reports that Johnny Depp has requested a delay in the defamation trial so that he could finish filming Fantastic Beasts 3. At the same time, the report also states that Amber Heard is still set to star in Aquaman 2. Deadline wrote:
“The legal papers also state that Heard has agreed to meet on Sept. 11 to discuss the potential delay and that the proposed postponement “would not entail any prejudice to her, much less unfair prejudice” as she’s expected to film Aquaman 2 sometime next year.”
Well, this may or may not hold up very well with the fans. On one end, the TV wing of WB fired Hartley Sawyer over his offensive tweets from the past. On the other end, WB’s movie department isn’t really addressing the offset behaviour of the likes of Ezra Miller & Amber Heard. In the case of Miller (who seemingly choked a woman), it was apparent at the Dome that they’ve decided to still go with him. Now, the case with Amber Heard seems similar as well. Maybe that’s because she is yet to be proven guilty in the lawsuit that her ex-husband filed against her.
It’s good that WB isn’t taking a decision in haste like Disney took when they fired James Gunn overnight. But still, moving forward with Amber Heard might cause a whole lot of backlash from the fans. One could argue that her on set behaviour may not have been abusive, which is why WB doesn’t really have any reason to fire her. Secondly, they may think that she deserves a second chance in life. The counter argument would be about WB’s brand image. Usually, big production companies like to stay away from people who get defamed publicly for the right reasons. But then again, there are a lot of factors in the legal matters of Johnny Depp & Amber Heard. So, a hasty decision wouldn’t be a wise one. Let’s see what the future holds for Aquaman’s female lead.
While Heard’s Aquaman 2 situation is fine for now, the past few days have seemingly hinted that there might be a problem related to Jason Momoa’s return as Aquaman. He was suspiciously absent from the FanDome event as the panel was just held by James Wan & Patrick Stewart. We thought that maybe his schedule was extremely packed. But could that be? The world is currently at a standstill due to the pandemic. Things felt really fishy when Momoa he deleted his Instagram posts about the FanDome just days before the event, and he didn’t even prerecord an answer for the Snyder cut panel either. Although he did promote the Snyder Cut trailer later on. So, we can’t really say what the real issue is with him. For now, his situation feels clumsy, but we believe that WB will sort out whatever his issues maybe. Hopefully there’s nothing to be worried about.
James Wan was pretty excited about Aquaman 2. He didn’t give us any specific story details, but he did say that the movie will be “…a little bit more serious. A little bit more relevant to the world that we’re living in today.” Aquaman 2 arrives on December 16, 2022.