Aquaman and DC Studios chaos is not Amber Heard’s fault
Rumors of a Warner Bros. sale to Universal are somehow overshadowed by Amber Heard's private therapy musings
Aux News Aquaman
Despite new management brought on to right the ship, DC Studios continues to be kind of a mess. James Gunn and Peter Safran were saddled with the dregs of DC’s previous slate, a set of underperforming blockbusters that have bogged down the studio’s attempted rebirth. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom is the latest of these, and it has already been mired in its own drama, much of it to do with Mera, a.k.a. Amber Heard.
A new Variety piece contextualizes some of the Aquaman 2 chaos, unfortunately drawing on conversations Heard had with her therapist that were submitted to the court during her legal battle with ex-husband Johnny Depp. (A group of Depp fans paid the court fees to get the documents released.) “Jason said he wanted me fired,” the notes from Heard’s therapist say of Jason Momoa. She further accuses the star of being drunk and late to set, and even “Dressing like Johnny. Has all the rings too.”
A Variety insider denied the accusations, claiming the pair got along and Momoa was never drunk on set, and never meant to dress like Depp (“He has always dressed in that bohemian style”). It should be noted that these were the private musings of a person emerging from an alleged abusive relationship, never meant to be shared with the public. (Heard’s legal team apparently fought the documents’ release.) Seeing a resemblance in the dress between her co-star and an ex is something someone has every right to discuss with their therapist, without it becoming a referendum on anyone’s character.
Momoa wanting Heard fired is a slightly different story. It was previously reported that Heard’s role in the Aquaman sequel was reduced amid her legal issues; now, the therapy notes mention director James Wan raising his voice at Heard on set, suggesting more behind-the-scenes tensions. While a DC spokesperson vouched for the professionalism and respectfulness of both Wan and Momoa, sources claim Heard was nearly fired, though they assert it wasn’t her personal life but a lack of chemistry with Momoa that was the problem. According to a source for the outlet, Heard’s former boyfriend, Elon Musk, had a litigator send a “scorched-earth letter to Warner Bros. threatening to burn the house down” if she wasn’t brought back for the sequel.
But not everything is about Amber Heard—in fact, Aquaman and DC’s issues aren’t really about Amber Heard at all. According to Variety, the film just hasn’t tested that well, prompting reshoots. “[No] one really wants to take ownership” of the movie amid the studio’s turmoil, and Momoa—as well as Snyderverse co-stars Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, and Gal Gadot—won’t be returning as any of the members of the Justice League.
Variety does add some fuel to the fire of the rumors that Momoa will return as Lobo instead of Aquaman, and to the rumors that Warner Bros. as a whole may be bought by Universal. In other words: there’s a lot going on over at DC, and most of it has nothing to do with Amber Heard at all. Whether Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom succeeds or fails will be a reflection of the studio’s struggle to find its footing and not the invaded privacy of a woman whose business has been plastered over the Internet for years now.
91 Comments
I swear Momoa was publicly defending her around the time the trial wrapped up, and various douche bros were talking shit about her and saying WB needed to fire her from the sequel.
I had thought so too. Really confusing and for me, very disappointing as well.
It wouldn’t be too surprising to find out that he was being publicly supportive but quietly suggesting that she be removed from the film — especially if he thought that her continued involvement would be detrimental to the film. Who is the star? Who gets associated with the film if it bombs? Plus – to be fair – she really isn’t a very good actress.
That would be a reasonable assumption, except for one thing:https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/amber-heard-aquaman-jason-momoa-johnny-depp-b2085844.htmlAs Amber Heard’s expert witness, Kathryn Arnold was giving evidence on her client’s instructions that Jason Momoa and James Wan were 100% in support of keeping in her the film (she was giving evidence to support the argument that Heard was perceived as a star in the making).These are 2 different narratives, essentially from the same source.
I mentioned this above, but I can’t imagine if she was thinking that Momoa was purposefully dressing like Depp or was just triggered by the fact that he does dress like Johnny Depp, it probably wasn’t a good place for her to be.
I think that Heard deserved support during the Depp trial AND that she is a bad actress who has no chemistry with Momoa. I don’t think there’s anything inconsistent in Momoa potentially thinking the same two things.
There’s also a difference between thinking someone deserves general respect and not thinking she’s a great value add to the movie. Honestly, if Amber Heard was feeling like Momoa was personally attacking her or acting in a way that was triggering to her (i.e. “dressing like Johnny.”), it’s also possible being in the movie wasn’t the best thing for Heard’s mental state and that her ability to function might have been undermined. A bad situation can be a bad situation without it meaning they are blaming her.
That’s the problem with taking therapy notes as “truth”. They’re just as likely emotional gut spillings as they are reasonable witness testimonies that, either way, by their nature, are then being repeated by a third party. Heard could have just been having a bad day, and saw Momoa in his regular Boho garb, got to her appointment and said “It’s almost like he was copying Johnny”, and then this was the short hand that resulted.There’s also the matter of this not being her actual therapist at the time, but a forensic psychologist hired after the fact to provide expert testimony on Heard’s behalf about how she was damaged by a culture Depp created. Can’t lead a witness in a courtroom, sure, but beforehand, anything goes.
I posted pictures of Jason Momoa from 2011-2015 dressed exactly like Johnny Depp in 2023 (to which someone snarkily replied that maybe that’s not how he was dressing on set… which… then why would she think he’s dressed like Johnny Depp?).Whoever leaked this seems like they’re trying to screw over her career by retroactively pitting the creative team against her and literally the most hated man in America, both at the same time. This should not have been put out there because even if it’s just her being confused, it’s her being confused in the most emotionally vulnerable moment in likely her entire career related in confidence to someone she wholly trusts.
The publication of Heard’s private interactions with her therapist was indeed a gross invasion of privacy. I’m glad to see the AV Club is addressing it by (checks notes) publishing her private interactions with her therapist.
This was discussed over on the gizmodo story. Heard’s attorneys introduced it into evidence, which made it a matter of public record.https://gizmodo.com/1850915459I’m not saying people should talk about it, but she probably would have been made aware that it was going to happen.
Her attorneys should be strung up (in a legal sense) for opening this particular can of worms to the public then. And we can never know if they communicated to her the fact that *anyone* could then apply to have the details released if they paid to do so. Both she and Depp came out of the whole thing looking like horrible people. She is still getting shit while he has seemingly moved on and is just fine. Yeah, that tracks.
Her team should have made sure she understood the implications and we don’t know that they didn’t. But the proceedings were televised. So even if nobody sat her down and explained it to her, it isn’t unreasonable to expect her to figure out on her own just how public it all was.
“She is still getting shit while he has seemingly moved on and is just fine.”Except for the whole having his career destroyed thing.
“having his career destroyed thing.” lol
Glad someone understood my hilarious exaggeration lol. Standing O!
Because the negative things about depp were the use of horrible language and substance issues that he admitted too…on her part it came out that she was also struggling with substances but despite the evidence she kept lying about it, she lied about being abused to ruin a person’s life,that she actually had abused Depp and many others,that she spat on her assistant’s face,that she cut off Depp’s finger,and that she pooped on his bad
Firstly the notes are not from her therapist. Dr Hughes was her expert witness and it was her job to support Heard’s mental health claims. What was said and the conclusions Hughes reached were always going to be challenged in court. Some people were very angry because the same wasn’t true for Depp, but he didn’t make any claims of PTSD. Maybe her countersuit was a bad idea, but if you watched the trial you probably got the impression that Heard was the one calling the shots, not her lawyers.
I definitely didn’t watch the trial. Because I’m not an absolute ghoul.
SO BRAVE
Sorry my caps locked and I hit reply before I could finish my sentence last night. What I meant to say is that Heard coming forward was so brave, and you made a great point. Thanks!
Ah, even after the Hulk thing they’ve still learned nothing.
Agreed!
(A group of Depp fans paid the court fees to get the documents released.) Fucking disgusting.
The irony that the WB for years was the exclusive maker of Christopher Nolan’s films, until they hamstringed him with Tenet, and then he went over to Universal…who now may wind up buying WB? Delicious.
At least she knew enough to get out of it though, unlike Melania, who sold her soul to be that demented oompa loompa’s arm candy until he finally eats one too many fish delights.
did you respond to the correct comment here?
Ummm, what? What “she”? To whom are you referring to?
I’m sure they’ll do a better job than the 73 other companies that have bought WB in the last few years.
Imagine Universal acquiring WB and canceling the Safran-Gunn-verse right before the new Superman film comes out. These films take so long to build up and launch that it’s hard to follow a single strategy all the way through before new leadership steps in and reshuffles everything.
I’ll be shocked if the new DCU gets past more than 1 – 2 projects. I like James Gunn very much. Peter Safran I can take or leave. But the whole management of the endeavor and the terrible messaging by all involved has been a lot, and frankly WBD is fast to axe things that aren’t working.
The one thing I’m worried about is that Gunn’s biggest successes were using the same formula. Both GotG and The Suicide Squad were films that primarily featured a bunch of C-list comic characters in films with B-quality plots, that are primarily carried by the comical character interaction, excellent actor portrayals, and presence of a clearly non-human mascot voiced by someone famous. Harley Quinn is the most famous DC character he’s worked with and her portrayal on-screen was fully defined by Margot Robbie before he even got involved. The formula even got used again for Peacemaker’s show. Great characters but the plot itself was… meh.
That said… I guess he doesn’t have a really high bar to step over considering the plots of the rest of the DCEU films.
Superman has been a tough nut to crack for a lot of filmmakers. I think it’s something that seems easy on the surface and then isn’t. I’m interested to see how Superman jives with his writing style and preferred tonal choices.I do think GotG likely benefitted from oversight as well. It’ll be interesting to see Gunn make choices in a world where the only choices that matter are his own.
Superman never works in movies because the writers try to treat Superman like DC Comics WANT people to think Superman is instead of how Superman actually is. The best example of this is All-Star Superman, which is a solidly fun read but a solidly terrible narrative that tells us absolutely nothing about Superman/Clark as a person other than “he’s good and strong.” Great stuff for people who think Superman is the best because he’s a good strong guy and so strong and therefore so good. Not much meat there emotionally.Ultimately, Superman’s basically just a decent dude with decent parents and superpowers and that’s it. The attempts to make him THE BEST HERO EVER always fail because he literally can’t solve the problems that would make him actually the best hero. His politics are garbage, his world view is myopic, he’s literally just a dude.Superman works best when the people around him are smarter and more worldly because they’re the ones fighting the hard fights. He works best when he shows up and punches the things that need punching because everyone else understands how things work better than him.In short: Superman is the ultimate white dude. He’s like perfectly distilled white supremacy. If you write him like a leader, as the white dudes who mostly write comics want him to be treated, he comes across as painfully tone-deaf. If you write him as a teammate he always has room to grow and learn. If you write him as an outsider, then you get some cool immigrant allegories. If you write him as the boss, he’s always an asshole that everyone hates.That’s why My Adventures With Superman, DCAU, Young Justice, Superman & Lois do so well. He’s just a nice adopted white boy from Kansas whose parents raised him right who then goes out into the world to experience new things and learn from the best.
I don’t disagree.I wonder if the approach is going to be “Make him Steve Rogers. People liked Steve Rogers.” It’ll be interesting to see how Gunn tackles it including tone. I don’t see Superman being as quippy as his characters tend to be, but I’m ready to be surprised.
Well it also doesn’t help that the people making Superman films get some truly horrible scripts. I mean there have been scripts where his main opponent was a tornado or a giant spider.
Superman Returns for example. Good cast, a somewhat strong start with the whole bullet to the eye thing and reintroduction to Lex Luthor but then it becomes a train wreck of bad idea after bad idea that brings to mind Key and Peele’s Gremlin’s 2 sketch. Why do we wind up with an island of Kryptonite and Superman being beat up by nameless henchman (I think one was Kal Penn)?Just to spitball something ‘better’ scrap the island, the kid subplot, keep Lex obtaining a way to grow Kryptonite just on a small scale and make it a film that kicks the worst of the Reeve Superman films in the face. Lex creates Metallo (using stolen Kryptonian tech from the Fortress of Solitude) as a replacement hero and uses him to hammer home the idea that the world doesn’t need an alien to save it, just human ingenuity. Total hypocrisy in action but it’s Lex. Lex then manufactures events that make Superman look bad thanks to strategic use of Kryptonite to make it seem like Superman is underperforming while Metallo, who is powered by the stuff and weakens Superman just by being close, repeatedly saves the day. When combined with Superman’s extended leave of absence from the planet, it seems to work. The public loves the android.
Have things fall apart when Lex realizes that he’s not actually hurting Superman. Clark would be happy not to have to don the cape and save the day. He’s a genuinely good guy that shows up to save the day because people need saving. Lex tries to scrap Metallo, Metallo is more sapient that Lex believed. Stuff happens that involves a hulking Terminator-like android rampaging through Lexcorp. Superman ends up needing a sun bath and Metallo’s AI winds up installed into the Kryptonian equivalent of a robot butler at the Fortress of Solitude or something.
Yes it’s a generic crap Superman idea… but it still makes more sense than the crap we got, or MoS trying to mimic the symbolism from Nolan’s Dark Knight Films by making Pa Kent someone that advocates for Clark to let people, including himself, die right in front of him when they could be easily saved. Not to mention BvS’s depressed and angsty Superman who is treated like Dr. Manhattan.
That feels right — the only X factor I guess is if the first or second project is a blockbuster. That might give them a reprieve.
The blackest indictment of Heard is really that she liked *Elon Musk* enough to have a relationship with him. At least Depp was a charming, handsome and beloved actor at one time.
Elon was popular once too.
Society made Musk seem charming and beloved for a while too. With appearances on things like The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory (at a soup kitchen no less), and Iron Man 2. His public persona didn’t really seem toxic until he started getting really, really, really comfortable with social media.
I mean… he was successfully sued for robbing his employees, was repeatedly fired from jobs, and had a years-long lawsuit he lost over shoving all of his black workers into a section of the factory called “The Plantation” and refusing to address rampant racial slurs shouted at people and written on bathroom walls.Everyone knew Elon was a piece of shit. They just needed to believe in the myth of meritocracy.Ultimately, Elon Musk was a PR creation birthed by Wired and Time Magazine to justify the idiocy of our economic system and its vampire-like draining of public funds for private enterprise. By the time he showed up in Iron Man 2, if you didn’t know how horrible he was, you either had no idea who he was at all or you were actively on Reddit with copypasta explaining how great he was.
God, she had to fuck Elon Musk?
Initially when they said Momoa “dressed like Johnny Depp” I thought it meant like, full Jack Sparrow gear or something. Not just like, in that kinda shlubby way Depp dresses. I don’t know how you could ever measure that as intentional or not.
Yeah, the only way Amber isn’t (again) creating shit in her mind that’s not really there is IF Momoa did show up as Capt Sparrow…cuz otherwise, uh, yeah Amber, that’s been Momoa’s whole aesthetic for many, many years.
Having read the notes, I’m not sure she was saying he deliberately dressed like Depp. She may have just been saying that they dress in a similar uncommon style – which is pretty clearly true – and it was uncomfortable for her.That said, if there were on-set tensions you could also understand why she’d think he might be trying to taunt her. He did it enough when they were on good terms. It came up during the publicity drive for the first Aquaman that he’d regularly rip up her books just to get her attention. The crew made her a custom green-screen book bag so she could keep them with her, away from him, during the wire harness scenes.
Yeah, I think they just share the same, terrible, terrible sense of style.
Please tell me that’s a photo from a movie set.
If not, he’s joined the relatively small list of people in Hollywood that routinely dress like they’re steampunk-adjacent cowboys who dabble in piracy.
As described in Mackelmore’s hit single ‘Thrift Shop”.
Nope.He’s on his way to Trader Joes to pick up some odds and ends.
And he’ll pay for them with beaver pelts, by the look of him.
What THE FUCK is that? Hawaiian mountain man? Is he on the way back to a crooked faro game at the Durango saloon, circa 1883? Does he have a bromo to sell you that he guarantees will cure your Miner’s Ague and Mule Teamster’s Gripe?
That’s him at his father’s funeral…
Sundance, apparently.
Depp looks like he’s wearing all his clothes, like a bag lady.
But yeah, in both cases, could they be wearing any more clothes.
It’s called, “hobo chic”.
It’s fashion, a way of life, inspired by the very homeless.
He’S bEiNg BoHeMiAn
I eat rabbits’ heads for breakfast.
Breakfast!
With beaver butt on the side.
The side!
My mind’s magnificent and my body no different.
I’m full of trapper pride!
Hence the reason she was discussing it with her therapist, who, hopefully told her that that was nuts (in the most medically polite way possible).
Yeah, there’s a bit of Main Character Syndrome there. People are allowed to dress the way they want, and they generally are not dressing a certain way to send a message to you specifically.
Nothing of what she said implied blame. Innocuous things can be upsetting to someone with trauma. Which is probably why she has, you know, a therapist.
It’s called transference, and it’s something that I often have to be told isn’t happening by my therapist (ptsd from sexual abuse), but sometimes it really feels like it’s happening.
The writer here frames it as an accusation, but reading the quote by itself, it seems ambiguous as to whether she’s implying it was something he’s doing to mess with her or if it’s just a similarity she noticed that’s making her uncomfortable (through no fault of Momoa’s).
A Variety insider denied the accusations, claiming the pair got
along and Momoa was never drunk on set, and never meant to dress like
Depp (“He has always dressed in that bohemian style”).
I think you mean a DC insider that Variety quoted, unless Variety is somehow tangled up in this mess as well.
I don’t like anything Warner Brother has been doing, but Universal buying them seems like a bad idea. Just like Disney buying Fox.
Wow, just gonna ignore that whole “she defamed the shit out of Depp repeatedly” aspect of things, eh.
I kinda read it more as they both turned out to be horrible people, particularly to each other, but he was the more bankable of the two.
Yeah my take was that I personally would stay as far away from both of these people as possible and with all the shit flung around it’s impossible to determine who was “worse.” I never previously watched a movie just because one of them was in it and this won’t stop me from seeing something in the future, so…
Well, she didn’t actually do that, at all.
No one cares.
I mean…they didn’t have chemistry. All drama aside, she’s not an amazing actress and their scenes together were forced. Her role should’ve been reduced or recast. Having her boyfriend threaten to damage the company is next level.
Agreed. I didn’t know anything about her and left the movie thinking she was terrible in it.
She was great in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and Drive Angry. She just has one type she can play.
They should lock Amber Turd in a room with Jonathon Majors.
Trans rights are human rights
God you’re pathetic
Nobody cares what you think and you’re bad.Free Palestine.
Source?
“Trans rights are human rights.” -Donald Trump, Trump: The Art of the Deal “(Trans rights) are human (rights).”-Ben Shapiro, The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great“I love sucking big-tittied girl cock.” -Rush Limbaugh, See, I Told You So
“Jason said he wanted me fired,” the notes from Heard’s therapist say of Jason Momoa. She further accuses the star of being drunk and late to set, and even “Dressing like Johnny. Has all the rings too.” It should be noted that these were the private musings of a person emerging from an alleged abusive relationship, never meant to be shared with the public. (Heard’s legal team apparently fought the documents’ release.) Seeing a resemblance in the dress between her co-star and an ex is something someone has every right to discuss with their therapist, without it becoming a referendum on anyone’s character.You…you see the hypocrisy here, right? That, in disseminating this information, you, by your own standards, are a fucking ghoul?
If you’re famous and you’re not a true crime person, a word of advice – always use pseudonyms in therapy. These things happen more than you think.
Dont know or care about aqauaman or whether amber can act. She is a slandering liar with real drug problems who tried to ruin johnny depps life to further her own ends. That she was so thoroughly revealed as such in that trial is the only good news to come from her name. She should be ostracized for the rest of her miserable life now.
Friend you’ve got to suck Johnny harder. He drinks so much it’ll take more effort to get him off.
I think you know all about sucking.
The first Aquaman movie stunk. Momoa is more like Aqua Bro. They should have made him like The Brave and the Bold cartoon Aquaman.
AV Club is one of the only few places that claim to be progressives left that still refuse to admit they were wrong in defending Amber Heard. Most of us normal folks were fine admitting that we were wrong after everything came to light during the trial. But nooo, the moral grandstanding posers at AVC refuse to admit that. They’d rather defend an abusive, manipulative, Elon-dick-riding scumbag. Bravo, bravo.
You’re a goddamn idiot for defending either of them since you don’t know them personally. Fucking weirdos.
Aquaman 2 will be dead on arrival anyway now that Gunn has fired his final shot at the DCEU and said none of the Snyder-League will be returning. I’ll be amazed if it makes 1/2 it’s budget back whether Amber Heard is in it or not.
I always find myself sympathetic of Heard whenever the trial stuff shows up on my social media apps (whether I like it or it), but Momoa really does dress up like a drunken Bohemian with lots of rings. I never thought of the Depp style similarity until now, but the notes about rings sound purely like just a Momoa thing.