James Wan has explained why Amber Heard has a “pared down” role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

The director has responded to Heard’s allegations that her role as Mera was significantly reduced in the sequel due to her legal battle with her ex-husband Johnny Depp.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Wan insisted Mera was always going to have a smaller role compared to the 2018 original because he wanted to focus on Arthur Curry/Aquaman’s relationship with his half-brother Orm in the follow-up.

“I always pitched this to everyone from the get-go. The first Aquaman was Arthur and Mera’s journey,” Wan told the outlet. “The second movie was always going to be Arthur and Orm.”

The director insisted, “The first was a romance action-adventure movie, the second one is a bromance action-adventure movie. We’ll leave it at that.”

In her testimony during her defamation trial against the Pirates of the Caribbean star in May 2022, Heard alleged her role kept being “pared down” with every draft of the script as a result of the negative publicity surrounding her and Depp, who ultimately won the trial.

“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, and they basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch out,” she claimed.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, starring Jason Momoa as Arthur and Patrick Wilson as Orm, will be released in December.

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