I’ve known that Amber Heard was a ticking time bomb for two years now. Back when I was waiting for the first Aquaman movie, I kept wondering if Amber Heard’s scandal with Depp would blow up in her face and impact the film’s release. Turns out it didn’t then, but now that the scandal officially has blown up in her face, this creates an interesting conundrum for the sequel.
The simplest option would be to just recast her, but movies don’t really seem to do that anymore, at least not for characters with human faces. Sure, the MCU recast Rhodey and Bruce Banner and TDK recast Rachel, but that was a different point in Hollywood. The landscape has changed since then. Personally, I’d prefer if they just not include Mera in the sequel at all. Maybe use the animated midquel as a way of writing the character out of the story.