It was really only a matter of time before the courtroom antics in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard lawsuits became an actual drama on the screen. Now, for those people who were engrossed in the case, but can't wait for the appeals to make their way through the court, Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial, is set to debut on the Tubi streaming service, and now we know who will play the leads.
Mark Hapka, previously of The Ghost Whisperer and Days of Our Lives will star as Johnny Depp, while Megan Davis, who has made appearances in Bones and American Horror Story, will star as Amber Heard. Joining them, according to Deadline, will be Melissa Marty as Johnny Depp's now-famous layer Camilla Vasquez and Mary Carrig as Heard's lawyer Elaine Bredehoft.
While the focus of the film will be the trial, the movie will apparently follow the characters both in and out of the court. It's unclear if that means that we'll simply see Heard and Depp dealing with their lawyers and planning strategy, or if we might see dramatizations of the various events that were brought up by each side as part of the trial.
Needless to say, this is an incredibly fast turn around for any movie. The verdict in the defamation trial was only announced in June, and the film will debut on Tubi September 30. The fact that we're only hearing about this movie now, a couple weeks before it will premiere, shows just how fast this project is moving. Hot Take is certainly an appropriate title in that case.
Johnny Depp initially sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation after the Washington Post published an op-ed in which she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse. While she never mentioned Depp by name in the op-ed it was widely understood that's who she was referring to. Depp claimed in the suit that the allegations directly led to Disney's decision to not continue his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.
Eventually Amber Heard filed a defamation countersuit as well. She accused Depp of orchestrating an attack on her that included calls to have her removed from her role in the Aquaman franchise. Testimony during the trial did reveal that her Aquaman 2 role had been reduced, though the studio claimed that decision was made for other reasons.
Clearly there's a desire here to strike while the iron is hot. While the case is still getting its share of interest months after it ended, there's no telling how long that will last. Of course, the case is currently under appeal from both Depp and Heard. At some point a decision will be made on that appeal and then we will likely get an all-new media blitz, and possibly, more movies.
