Amber Heard Missing From Aquaman 2 Trailer, Deleted From Movie?
The new Aquaman 2 teaser trailer was released this weekend, and fans can’t help but notice that Amber Heard is missing from the official promotional clip. Though many have speculated that the role of Mera would have been recast after Heard’s highly publicized legal dispute with Johnny Depp, there has been no confirmation that Heard will be removed from the film outright. As of this writing, there has been no official report that the studio has decided to take this route.
Despite the rumors, and the overwhelmingly successful fan petition to get Amber Heard removed from Aquaman 2, Peter Safran has gone on record stating that fan pressure wouldn’t be enough to remove her from the final iteration of the film.
Walter Hamada stated that the size of Amber Heard’s role had not changed during the development of Aquaman 2, but rather that she was never really a central character to begin with.
The petition, which was started in May 2022, received over four million signatures and came to be after Warner Bros. removed Johnny Depp from 2002’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore after domestic abuse allegations were made against him. Amber Heard has even gone so far as to state that her role in the film was significantly pared down after the commencement of her defamation trial.
There’s more to the picture than meets the eye, however. At one point, DC Films president Walter Hamada testified during the trial that there were in fact talks about removing Amber Heard from Aquaman 2, but it was largely due to her lack of chemistry with Jason Momoa rather than the abuse allegations toward her.
We could reasonably assume that if Amber Heard did in fact get scenes cut from Aquaman 2, it wasn’t a direct result of her recent controversies, but instead for narrative reasons.
Whether Heard’s role as Mera was reduced, or remains unchanged, remains to be seen, but her absence from the trailer does raise a few questions.
Hamada also stated that the size of Amber Heard’s role had not changed during the development of Aquaman 2, but rather that she was never really a central character to begin with. Elaborating on this sentiment, Hamada suggested that the film was always meant to be more focused on the relationship between Aquaman and Orm as if it were a buddy comedy.
In other words, we could reasonably assume that if Amber Heard did in fact get scenes cut from Aquaman 2, it wasn’t a direct result of her recent controversies, but instead for narrative reasons.
The more likely scenario is that while Amber Heard still probably has a substantial amount of screen time in Aquaman 2, the studio probably just decided to keep her out of the promotional material.
We saw Ezra Miller get similar treatment in light of their recent controversies that have been reported to be responsible for The Flash performing so poorly at the box office. Not wanting to have another flop on their hands, it makes sense that the studio wants to downplay her involvement in the film with their press and promotion of Aquaman 2.
Considering how strongly fans felt about having her removed from the film, we can’t necessarily blame the studio for not including Amber Heard in the Aquaman 2 trailer.
When To Watch Aquaman 2
Since we’re mostly dealing with speculation, we’re just going to have to wait and see. Aquaman 2 is slated for a December 20, 2023 release, and we can see how much screen time Amber Heard has when it premieres.
