Social media and online petitions can carry a certain amount of weight, especially when they go viral. It can show a studio or network that a fanbase is passionate enough to create enough traction to shift a project in the direction they deem necessary. Actress Amber Heard found herself at the center of one of those petitions when Johnny Depp fans campaigned to have her removed from the Aquaman sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The actress and Depp have been in a long and contentious battle that has drawn lines in the sand and led to nearly 2 million fans signing a petition on Change.org demanding her firing. Did this petition come under consideration as Warner Bros. headed into the sequel? According to one producer, it didn't even move the needle.
Leading up to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom going into production, the hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp began to trend along with the petition as Warner Bros. asked Johnny Depp to resign from Fantastic Beasts 3. Depp's supporters believed that he was innocent of Heard's allegations that he abused her and, at the very least, they thought Warner Bros. should've removed her from the Aquaman sequel because they felt she was just as much in the wrong as Depp in the situation.
Producer Peter Safran and the entire Aquaman team were fully aware of the controversy surrounding Heard's involvement in the sequel and Safran confirms that the other producers, nor director James Wan, ever considered firing Amber Heard as an option. Safran says they would never cater to "pure fan pressure" and, while speaking on the Deadline Hero Nation podcast, he also said it was best for the film that Heard returned as Mera:
"I don't think we're ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure. 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."
Amber Heard herself has previously dismissed the fan efforts to have her fired from the Aquaman sequel. During a chat with "Entertainment Weekly" last November, Heard spoke of the petition by saying, "Paid rumors 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."
Aquaman and the Long Kingdom see Momoa and Heard's return, along with Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Temuera Morrison. James Wan is back on board to direct while David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick takes on screenwriting duties. The sequel follows Aquaman which blew away expectations at the box office with a final global gross of $1.1 billion.
Do YOU think it was right to keep Amber Heard in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom?