UPDATE Nov. 12, 12pm ET: The petition has surpassed one million signees.
A petition to remove Amber Heard from Aquaman 2 reaches over 900K signatures. Heard first appeared as Mera, the princess of Xebel, one of the underwater kingdoms, in Zack Snyder's Justice League in 2017. She went on to reprise her role opposite Jason Momoa in 2018's Aquaman, now the highest-grossing DC movie of all time. Heard is set to return for Aquaman 2 in 2022.
Heard has lately been the center of a controversy with ex-husband Johnny Depp. Depp and Heard, who met on the set of the 2011 film The Rum Diary, married on Depp’s private island in the Bahamas in 2015. After filing for divorce in 2016, Heard obtained a restraining order against Depp, accusing him of physically and verbally abusing her. Other allegations against the actor included Depp trying to have Heard fired from Aquaman and prevent her from being hired on other Warner Bros. projects. All of the troubling allegations led to criticism over Depp being cast as Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts films in 2016. Depp sued Heard for defamation in 2019, after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post claiming to be a victim of domestic violence during their short-lived marriage. Depp also sued the U.K. publication The Sun after they called him a "wife-beater" in one of their articles. The case went to trial in July, and last Monday the judge ruled against Depp, stating that he belied there was enough evidence to support Heard's claims. Shortly after, Depp announced that he was asked to resign from Fantastic Beasts 3, with the studio confirming he would be recast.
The decision led to outrage from fans, who launched an online petition demanding that Heard be fired from Aquaman 2, believing that Heard should face the same consequences as Depp. The Change.org petition titled "Remove Amber Heard from Aquaman 2" has reached over 900k signatures. The petition reads:
Amber Heard has been exposed as a domestic abuser by Johnny Depp. In his $50 million lawsuit, Johnny Depp describes many incidents of domestic abuse that he suffered at the hands of his (then) wife Amber Heard, including one incident where she punched him twice in the face and another where she shattered his finger with a vodka bottle, and his finger had to be surgically reattached. He will bear the scar from that for the rest of his life.
The petition also points out that Heard was arrested back in 2009 for domestic abuse of her former partner, noting a pattern from the actress. It also claims that Heard has attempted to ruin Depp's career since their divorce, making false claims of abuse and causing him to be pulled from projects. The petition is referring to the abusive behavior that Depp accused Heard of during his court case.
With the petition nearly reaching 1 million signatures, it's clear that Depp has many supporters who want to see Heard face the same fate as Depp. Interestingly, Warner Bros. has say over both the Harry Potter franchise and the DC Extended Universe. Though Heard recently reshot her scenes for the Snyder cut of Justice League, Warner Bros. could eventually decide to ask Heard to step down from Aquaman 2.
Source: Change.org
