AQUAMAN 2 Director James Wan Defends His Decision To Scale Back Amber Heard's Role in the Movie

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom director James Wan is defending his decision to scale back on Amber Heard's role as Mera in the upcoming film, and he says that it was his plan from the start.

During Heard’s defamation trial involving Johnny Depp, she claimed in court that Warner Bros. “didn’t want to include me” in the “Aquaman” sequel due to the fallout of her divorce from Depp. She also said her role in the sequel was “pared down” and action scenes were “taken away.”

Wan responded to those claims in an interview with Empire Magazine and explained what he was looking to do with the sequel saying:

"It’s fair that [Heard] said that [about the character being pared down], because she wasn’t in my head as I was working on this movie. Actors don’t necessarily know what we [directors] behind the scenes are thinking about. But this was always my plan."

"From the start, I pitched that the first film would be a 'Romancing The Stone'-type thing - an action-adventure romantic comedy - while the second would be an outright buddy comedy. I wanted to do 'Tango & Cash!'"

The big question on everyone’s mind right now is… will the sequel sink or swim at the box office? The first film grossed 1.1 billion, but superhero movies in general aren’t doing as well as they used to right now. This film has also faced a lot of challenges with behind-the-scenes allegations, reshoots, and terrible test screenings.

There’s also the fact that this movie doesn’t really even matter in the grand scheme of things at DC Studios because James Gunn and Peter Safran are pretty much rebooting the DC Cinematic Universe that reportedly won’t include Jason Momoa’s version of the character.