Elon Musk kept Amber Heard from getting fired from Aquaman 2, and other wild tales

Variety has posted a report about the state of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — the next big movie in the DC Cinematic Universe — and about Warner Bros. Discovery more generally. The article could be subtitled, “Anatomy of a dumpster fire.” It’s full of so much red hot gossip that I don’t where to start. Let’s run down some of the highlights:

Elon Musk threatened to “burn the house down” if Amber Heard wasn’t in Aquaman 2

So Aquaman 2 stars Jason Momoa as Aquaman and Amber Heard as Aquaman’s wife Mera. In addition to being an actor, Amber Heard is also a human lightning rod who was at the center of a legal firestorm last year during a defamation trial involving her and her ex-husband Johnny Depp. Without getting into all the bloody details, Heard became extremely unpopular online, to the point where fans were petitioning for her to be removed from the movie.

According to Variety, Heard was indeed nearly fired from Aquaman 2, although people can’t seem to agree on why. Some say it was a lack of chemistry with Momoa, others that the studio was just trying to avoid the bad PR it would likely generate were Heard placed front and center. In the end, the studio opted to keep Heard but cut out at least two of her scenes, including a fight scene between Meera and Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and a love scene with Aquaman.

The real kicker is that, according to Variety, WBD opted not to fire Heard because her ex-boyfriend Elon Musk — that would be the Twitter-destroying, Mars-obsessed, electric car-building billionaire — had one of his lawyers send a “scorched-earth letter to Warner Bros. threatening to burn the house down” if Heard wasn’t brought back for a sequel. WBD complied; you don’t say no to a man who has a network of satellites hovering above the Earth at all times. Who knows what he’s got up there?

Jason Momoa allegedly tried to get Amber Heard fired and…dressed like Johnny Depp on set?

That’s probably the weirdest news in the Variety article. Now for the most uncomfortable news. So apparently, notes from Amber Heard’s therapy sessions were part of the Heard-Depp defamation trial. And apparently (I have a feeling I’m going to be using that word a lot), if you pay a fee, you can get access to court documents like that. Some fans did pay that fee and posted Heard’s therapy notes online.

Did everybody know you could do this? Was I the only one who didn’t know? Anyway, according to the notes, Heard talked about how she was being mistreated by Momoa and by director James Wan on the set of Aquaman 2. “Jason said he wanted me fired,” the notes say. “Jason drunk — late on set. Dressing like Johnny. Has all the rings too.”

So apparently, Momoa dressed like Johnny Depp on the set of Aquaman 2, at least according to Amber Heard’s therapy notes, which I’m not really comfortable admitting as evidence, so to speak. Also, what does dressing up like Johnny Depp mean? Well, one source said that “he isn’t dressing like Johnny Depp. He has always dressed in that bohemian style.”

Is that the kind of thing they’re talking about? I really don’t know. I feel like I’m getting hung up on this. The source also said that Momoa “works his ass off, likes to have a beer once in a while like everyone, but doesn’t show up drunk to set.”

Finally, to add a touch of middle school drama to this story, Variety also notes that Momoa unfollowed Heard on Instagram.

Universal may buy Warner Bros.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is in a very weird place. The movie involves characters first introduced by Zack Snyder back was he was running the DC Cinematic Universe, most prominently Aquaman himself. But at the moment, James Gunn and Peter Safran are working on rebuilding the DCU from the ground up, with all new actors playing important characters like Superman and Batman. So where does that leave Aquaman 2? As one source said, “The movie is like this echo of regimes. It’s the last remnant of the Snyderverse, and no one really wants to take ownership of it.”

Gunn reportedly wants to keep Momoa around in his new DCU, but as another character: the Superman villain Lobo. According to Variety’s sources, Momoa could turn up as Lobo in either the upcoming movie Superman: Legacy or in a standalone film.

But who knows if we’ll get to that point, because there could be corporate shakeups afoot. APPARENTLY, some people within Warner Bros. Discovery believe that Warner Bros. — the studio behind all things DC — could be sold off to another company, most likely Universal, in the next few years. (Or rather NBCUniversal, since everything is a conglomerate nowadays.)

That would raise all kinds of questions. Would other WBD properties like HBO be included in such a sale, or would they remain with Warner Bros. Discovery…or whatever Warner Bros. Discovery changes its name to after it sells Warner Bros.? The entertainment industry has already undergone lots of mergers and sell-offs in the past few years. If you thought things were settling down, think again.

Anyway, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom comes out in theaters on December 20, 2023. Everything’s fine.

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