Johnny Depp has been removed from ‘The Fantastic Beasts’ franchise for almost 10 days now, and he has been successfully (reportedly) replaced by ‘Hannibal’ star, Mads Mikkelsen. With Warner Bros. letting the veteran actor go from the global phenomenon of a film series, we want to ask an uncomfortable question here – why doesn’t Amber Heard get the same treatment?
For those of you who don’t know or remember, Amber Heard portrays Mera, a DC Superhero who has the ability to control water, in both ‘Justice League’ and ‘Aquaman’. So with ‘Aquaman 2’ reportedly going into production later next year, Warner Bros. Productions (who owns DC characters) should be replacing Amber Heard as well (They seem to have enough time in their hands to do so). Depp was removed from the franchise, which stemmed from the ongoing fight between the two actors, and this type of “discrimination” shown by the company is quite alarming.
But this opens up a minefield of questions, which either no one wants to ask or they don’t want the answer to, like – Are they waiting for a similar incident of Johnny’s and bidding time for her to lose a suit? Is she not replaceable? Could it be that WB Productions don’t want to be seen as the company that stops victims from working to avoid a scandal? Are the repercussions of her suing the production company, not worth the hassle? And these are just a few questions that arise from this on-going public quarrel between the two celebs.
Now according to reports, WB is waiting for Heard to lose one of the cases so as to ask her to leave the DC franchise as well. If this is an actual plan drafted by one of the biggest movie production companies in the world, it is a ridiculously bad one. This means that they are just waiting for an excuse to get rid of the actor with reasons varying from whether they don’t want to be involved in controversies to having to appear “fair” to the general public, especially after they “evicted” Depp from the series.
There is a lot to this feud that we don’t fully know, due to multiple “true accounts” from both actors pleading their case. Probably one of them is lying, or maybe both of them are. But with evidence suggesting that there could be wrong on either side, WB should be treating both actors the same way, or at least until a final verdict comes out (and yes, it could be like 5 years from now). So either kick them both of the film productions, or keep them, because the double standard is quite absurd.