Johnny Depp. Brendan Smialowski/AP/Shutterstock
A big payday. Johnny Depp‘s agent claimed that the actor would have received a huge sum for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Jack WhighamThe Oscar nominee, 58, was represented by a Creative Artists Agency representative and Range Media Partners later at Range Media Partners. He testified Monday, May 2 that his client would have received $22.5 million for a sixth Oscar nomination Pirates movie. Agent claimed that Amber Heard‘s December 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post led Disney to go “in a different direction” with the franchise.
The Edward ScissorhandsStar and the AquamanThe 36-year-old actress is currently undergoing court proceedings in connection to a Defamation lawsuit Depp brought against Heard in 2019 over the allegations. Washington Post essay. Heard wrote about her experience as a survivor in domestic abuse, but she did no mention her ex husband by name.
“After the op-ed it was impossible to get him a studio film,” Whigham testified on Monday, claiming that the essay had a detrimental impact on Depp’s career. “It was a first-person account coming from the victim. It became a death-knell catastrophic thing for Mr. Depp in the Hollywood community.”
Last month, the Dark ShadowsActor claimed that Disney dropped him from a planned event PiratesHeard published her essay as a sequel. An attorney for the plaintiff was however present during cross-examination. Magic Mike XXLStar asked Depp questions about a Daily Mail report from October 2018 that claimed the actor was “out as Jack Sparrow.”
Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. Film Frame/Walt Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
The Kentucky native said that he hadn’t seen the Daily MailThe article was published two months before his ex wife published her op ed. “I wasn’t aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me,” he testified in April. “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.”
Heard will, for her part take the stand later this week, after she switched crisis management companies. The New York PostSunday, May 1st, it was reported that Precision Strategies was dropped by Texas native Shane Communications.
The defamation lawsuit is separate from Depp’s libel suit against the U.K. newspaper The SunThe decision was made in November 2020. The Blow actor filed the lawsuit against the outlet in June 2018 after the paper referred to him as a “wife beater” in an article about the Fantastic BeastsFilm series.
England’s High Court of Justice eventually ruled that the article was not libelous because the allegations against Depp were “substantially true.” Shortly after the verdict, Depp exited the third Fantastic BeastsFilm, subtitled The Secrets of Dumbledore.
“I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. Mads MikkelsenHe was replaced in the movie, which opened in theaters last month.
