As Johnny Depp battles through a tumultuous divorce process with Amber Heard, fans of the actor launched a social campaign to get Warner Bros. to have Heard removed from the Aquaman sequel to keep her from returning in her role as Mera.
A petition attached to the campaign garnered over 1.8 million signatures, but as Aquaman producer Peter Safran explains, the campaign held no weight when it came to making a decision about the film's cast.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure,” Safran said while speaking on the Deadline Hero Nation podcast. “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.”
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It was in June that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom director James Wan revealed that production has begun for the sequel to the successful film. The announcement lit a renewed fire under the #JusticeForJohhnyDepp campaign, which began last year as a result of Depp's libel trial against The Sun. When a court ruled in favor of the publication, Warner Bros. had Depp removed from the third Fantastic Beasts film. Fans took to the Internet in an effort to have Amber Heard hit with similar recourse.
“Paid rumors and paid campaigns on social media don’t dictate [casting decisions] because they have no basis in reality," Heard would pen shortly after in November. "Only the fans actually made Aquaman and Aquaman 2 happen. I’m excited to get started next year.”