The ongoing legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is showing no signs of slowing down, especially since the former couple is officially facing off in a Virginia courtroom. Both actors have taken the stand in the legal proceedings, most recently Heard. And while testifying, she responded to Depp alleging she wrote the now-infamous op-ed in order to sell Aquaman tickets.
The legal saga happening between the two actors came as a response to a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that Amber Heard wrote about living with domestic abuse. While it didn’t name Johnny Depp, the public quickly made the connection. Depp and his team have alleged this was done just so it would bolster interest and ticket sales for James Wan’s original Aquaman movie. Per Insider, Heard addressed this on the stand, saying:
It doesn’t work like that. A major franchise like that is not aided by an op-ed in The Washington Post. I thought I could lend my voice to that conversation.
Well, there you have it. According to Amber Heard’s point of view, her op-ed didn’t really have the power to influence the box office performance of Aquaman. After all, the DC blockbuster was highly anticipated ahead of its release, and Warner Bros. no doubt put millions of dollars into promotion. The two events just happened to both take place in 2018.
After a week of the trial being paused, things kicked back up this week with Amber Heard once again returning to the stand. Most recently her role as Mera in the DCEU has come up a number of times, with the 36 year-old actor admitting that a bunch of her material in the upcoming sequel Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom was cut. We’ll just have to see how much Mera is present when the project hits theaters in March of 2023.
Later during her same testimony, Amber Heard claimed that she was actually hoping that the notoriety of Aquaman would actually help more eyes see her op-ed, and therefore spread awareness about domestic violence. As she explained,
The publicity of the movie and the success of the movie would hopefully, in the best-case scenario...lend attention to the issues the op-ed was meant to address.
Regardless of what Amber Heard thought she could accomplish with her op-ed in the Washington Post, that’s a story that would ultimately kickstart years of legal fees and courtroom appearances from both she and Johnny Depp. And following a face off in the U.K. over a libel case against The Sun, the legal saga has finally come stateside.
Since both Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s testimonies are available on TV, the public discourse surrounding the former couple has been deafening. This includes chatter online and in person, with some Starbucks employees allowing folks to soundoff via tip jars.
Amber Heard can be seen in Aquaman 2 on March 17th, 2023. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
