Warning: potential spoilers for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom are in play. We’re not sure if these are valid, but a heads up is still in order in case you want to avoid these details.
As the final week of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s defamation trial moves towards its conclusion, the subject of Aquaman 2 has loomed over the proceeding as of late. Heard’s role in one of 2023’s upcoming DC movies has been a point of speculation, with a supposed connection to Heard and Depp’s ongoing history of legal drama. We might now be closer to the truth of that matter, as an expert witness may have spoiled what Mera is doing in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Reporting on the testimony of entertainment industry consultant Kathryn Arnold, EW pulled statements that came from Arnold’s accounts of what Amber Heard told her about the Aquaman sequel’s story. Further backing the actor's claims that her role in the upcoming follow up was reduced, Kathryn also note that she hadn’t read any drafts of the script herself. With that in mind, here's what Kathryn Arnold said about Mera's role in Aquaman 2:
I believe that in the first act of the movie, she was injured somehow, or it had something to do with a baby. … [Mera] ends up in the hospital early in this new Aquaman 2 movie and doesn't really come out until the end to kind of wrap things up. All the interactions with Momoa's character, and certainly the action scenes, were taken out.
Should this story be true, Amber Heard’s previous claims of her Aquaman 2 role reduction would seem to be correct. Kathryn Arnold’s testimony definitely looks to align with Heard’s own remarks about how revised scripts gradually shrank her character’s presence in the follow-up to 2018’s Aquaman. This is in addition to a separate claim that Mera was almost completely absent in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which would be more damning, if accurate.
Further elaborating on the alleged changes made to the Warner Bros/DC picture, Kathryn Arnold also recounted Amber Heard’s story about preparing for Aquaman 2. More specifically, the physical training aspect for a supposed action sequence that was cut from the script. In her own words, here’s what Arnold says Heard told her:
[Amber Heard] trained 5 hours a day for several months with the trainer to do this big action sequence. … So [her role] was radically reduced from what it was in the script and what she even trained for while she was preparing for the movie.
There’s no telling how much of Amber Heard’s role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was reduced, if it was changed at all. With all of those details clearly contained behind closed doors, the public can’t even tell if the details above are accurate and valid. All that anyone can say for certain at this point is that production on Aquaman 2 has wrapped, and there’s always a chance for further reshoots to take place, potentially beefing up Heard’s presence.
It seems there’s a lot of time for that sort of concept to take place, as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom won’t swim into theaters until March 17th, 2023. While fans are waiting for that fateful day, there’s a ton of 2022 movie releases that’ll take audiences on all sorts of adventures. Or if fans are feeling nostalgic for Aquaman and Mera’s previous appearances in the DCEU, they can revisit James Wan’s previous entry if they happen to possess an HBO Max subscription.
