Johnny Depp and Amber Heard continue to butt heads in the U.S. defamation lawsuit launched by the former against the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom star after allegations of domestic abuse. As the case develops and testimonies take the internet by storm, the publicized court hearing has once again managed to dust off the infamous online petition to have Heard removed from James Wan’s sequel.
Indeed, after passing numerous milestones in the past two years but slowly losing traction, the appeal on Change.org is picking up speed again, now well on its way to garner three million signatures. As of writing this, the petition has more than 2,190,000 signatures, though every minute brings dozens more.
The endorsers claim that since Johnny Depp is suffering blacklisting at the hands of Hollywood moguls — notoriously losing out on both the Pirates of the Caribbean 6 and his role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts 3 — Heard should face a similar backlash, starting with her role as Mera in the Aquaman sequel. Here’s an excerpt from the petition:
Since Heard’s divorce from Johnny Depp, she has systematically crusaded to ruin Depp in Hollywood, repeating multiple accounts of fake incidents in which she had actually abused Johnny Depp, but lied and created false accounts of him being the abuser. About the incident during which she shattered the bones in Johnny Depp’s finger and nearly severed it, causing Depp to require surgery to reattach and repair it, Heard presented a false story claiming that he cut off his finger himself, dipped it in paint and scrawled obscenities all over the walls.
As Amber Heard is a known and proven domestic abuser, Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment should and must remove Heard from their Aquaman 2 film project. They must not ignore the suffering of Heard’s victims, and must not glamorize a domestic abuser.
So far, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears, and Warner Bros. has, as of yet, announced no plans to reduce Heard’s role in the sequel, let alone remove it altogether.
Whether that changes in the near future and as a result of this ongoing trial’s verdict is another matter, but we’ll be sure to update you if we hear anything on the matter.