Johnny Depp has been on a lawsuit tear. Not only is he suing ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation, he is suing former attorney Jake Bloom. Depp’s lawsuit concerns, among other things, what he now feels was bad advice given on how to handle the divorce from Heard. Bloom has served deposition notices to everyone — from former Warner Bros. chairman Kevin Tsujihara, to Heard, to Heard’s ex Elon Musk. “Sources familiar with the deposition requests say Tsujihara will be asked to testify under oath about whether or not he played a role in ‘blacklisting’ Heard at Warner Bros.,†says The Hollywood Reporter. Depp, who stars as Grindelwald in the WB tentpole Fantastic Beasts series, allegedly asked Tsujihara in 2017 to kick Heard out of Aquaman. Of course, Heard had already played Mera in 2016’s Justice League, so things would have seemed amiss if Tsujihara had caved.
In her December 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, Heard wrote that friends warned her of blacklisting if she went public with her abuse allegations. “A movie I was attached to recast my role. I had just shot a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand, and the company dropped me,†she wrote. “Questions arose as to whether I would be able to keep my role of Mera in the movies Justice League and Aquaman.†According to the THR, Warner Bros. is not the only studio where Heard faced blacklisting, but Warner’s is the only executive who was served a deposition notice.