Featured Image Credit: Alamy/Warner Bros
Topics: TV and Film, Aquaman, Amber Heard
Jess Hardiman
An expert witness for Amber Heard has given away what appears to be a huge spoiler for Aquaman 2, having spoken about plot details of the film in relation to claims that the star’s role was ‘pared down’.
Entertainment industry consultant Kathryn Arnold was called to the stand this week as Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against ex-wife Heard continues.
On Monday, 23 May, Arnold described how ‘defamatory statements’ made by Depp’s attorney, Adam Waldman, had damaged Heard’s career, saying studios and brands became apprehensive to work with her amid social media backlash at the time.
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Arnold said the first Aquaman movie was Heard’s ‘A Star is Born moment’, and that it was an ‘extraordinary moment’ for her career to ‘take off’.
She said: "It was that moment where not only was she a good actor, but she was now world-renowned because she was in the most successful film... certainly for DC Comics."
Heard had previously testified that, while she will still appear in the forthcoming sequel, her involvement is now a ‘very pared-down version of that role’, saying: "I was given a script and then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes that had action in it that depicted my character and another character – without giving any spoilers away – two characters fighting with one another. They basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch out."
(This probably goes without saying, but if you’re not after spoilers for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, perhaps look away now.)
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Arnold then echoed this sentiment, describing changes that were made to the script.
"I believe that in the first act of the movie, she was injured somehow, or it had something to do with a baby," she said.
Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Heard’s Queen Mera haven’t got married on screen yet, but the two characters tie the knot and have a son in the DC comics.
Explaining that she is relying on what Heard has told her, as she has not seen later versions of the script, Arnold claimed Mera ‘ends up in the hospital early in this new Aquaman 2 movie and doesn't really come out until the end to kind of wrap things up’.
Arnold also testified that Heard had trained for five hours a day for several months in preparation for a big action sequence, but that she hadn’t been told about her reduced role until she arrived on set.
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The producer and entertainment consultant added: "So [her role] was radically reduced from what it was in the script and what she even trained for while she was preparing for the movie.”