Petition to remove Amber Heard from 'Aquaman 2' gathers almost three million signatures

'Action must be taken to prevent a known abuser from being celebrated,' says the Change.org petition

US actress Amber Heard during the Depp vs Heard defamation trial. AFP

A petition to remove actress Amber Heard from the Aquaman sequel has been signed by more than 2.97 million people. If it reaches the three-million mark, it will become one of the most signed petitions ever to feature on Change.org.

The online petition calls on Warner Bros and DC Entertainment to eliminate Heard from Aquaman and the the Lost Kingdom, which is due for release on March 17, 2023. It comes as Johnny Depp's defamation trial against his former wife gathers pace, with allegations emerging that Heard was violent towards Depp during their marriage.

“Amber Heard has been exposed as a domestic abuser by Johnny Depp… Men are victims of domestic abuse, just like women,” says the petition. “This must be recognised, and action must be taken to prevent a known abuser from being celebrated within the entertainment industry.”

Director James Wan took to Instagram in January to announce that filming of Aquaman and the the Lost Kingdom had come to an end. “And finally, finally, finally picture wrap on the actual last day of #Aquaman2."

The Aquaman sequel has Jason Momoa returning in the titular role, alongside Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren and Nicole Kidman. Heard, who played Aquaman’s love interest Mera in the original film, was also cast in the sequel, although reports suggest that her screen time has already been cut to 10 minutes.

The petition details the numerous allegations of abuse that have emerged against Heard during the trial and highlights how the actress has affected Depp’s career with her own claims of domestic violence.

“Since Heard's divorce from Johnny Depp, she has systematically crusaded to ruin Depp in Hollywood, repeating multiple accounts of fake incidents in which she had actually abused Johnny Depp, but lied and created false accounts of him being the abuser.”

A central premise of the ongoing Depp v Heard trial is that the veteran actor was dropped from major roles as a result of Heard’s allegations against him, causing irreparable damage to his career.

Depp claims that mere days after Heard published an op-ed piece in The Washington Post claiming to be a victim of domestic abuse, he was dropped from the sixth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean, despite his long-running role as the film’s leading character, Captain Jack Sparrow.

"Two years had gone by of constant worldwide talk about me being this wife-beater. So I'm sure that Disney was trying to cut ties to be safe. The #MeToo movement was in full swing at that point,” Depp said on the stand.

In November 2020, at the request of Warner Bros, the actor was also forced to step down from his role as Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

While Depp has not appeared in a film since 2020’s Minimata, in January Variety reported that he would star as French king Louis XV in a new film directed by French filmmaker Maiwenn, with production due to begin in summer.

The trial continues on Monday.