Depp's Fantastic Beasts role vanishes after he loses libel case

Warner Bros movie studio says actor will leave franchise and his part will be recast

Actor Johnny Depp leaving the High Court in London on July 28 after his libel trial against The Sun newspaper. He had sued the publishers of the tabloid after it said he had been violent towards his former wife, actress Amber Heard. PHOTO: REUTERS
Actor Johnny Depp leaving the High Court in London on July 28 after his libel trial against The Sun newspaper. He had sued the publishers of the tabloid after it said he had been violent towards his former wife, actress Amber Heard. PHOTO: REUTERS

LOS ANGELES • Johnny Depp has been forced out of the Fantastic Beasts movie franchise, days after losing a libel case in Britain against a tabloid that branded him a "wife beater".

The A-list actor, writing on Instagram on Friday, said that AT&T's Warner Bros movie studio had asked him to leave his role as villain Gellert Grindelwald.

"I have respected and agreed to that request," he said.

Warner Bros said in a statement that Depp "will depart the Fantastic Beasts franchise", and that his role would be recast.

Depp recently resumed production on the third film in the spin-off from Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling.

Warner Bros said on Friday that the film's release date had been pushed back to the summer of 2022 from next November.

Rowling - herself a survivor of domestic abuse - declined to comment on Depp's departure.

His exit marked a relatively rare move by Hollywood to recast an actor on ethical grounds.

Kevin Spacey's role in All The Money In The World was reshot with Christopher Plummer in 2017 after Spacey was accused by more than 20 men of sexual misconduct.

Spacey has not commented since making an apology to his first accuser.

Charlie Sheen was fired in 2011 from television's top-rated sitcom, Two And A Half Men, after months of drink-and drug-fuelled partying. He was replaced by Ashton Kutcher.

Depp, 57, who plans to appeal against the London libel judgment, wrote that his "life and career will not be defined by this moment".

The Pirates Of The Caribbean star had sued the publishers of The Sun newspaper after it said he had been violent towards his former wife, actress Amber Heard, 34.

The newspaper also questioned his casting in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

The three-week libel trial in July heard evidence from both Depp and Heard about a tempestuous marriage marked by violence on both sides, and of heavy drinking by Depp. A British judge last Monday ruled against Depp.

"I accept that Mr Depp put her in fear of her life," the judge wrote in a statement dismissing the case. He said the paper had shown that the claims it published were "substantially true".

Rowling had come under fire in 2017 for casting Depp in the first Fantastic Beasts movie after initial details of his 2016 divorce from Heard were made public.

Rowling said at the time that the circumstances of the divorce were a private matter. Warner Bros also said in 2017 that it supported the decision to keep Depp.

The Fantastic Beasts movies, based on the adventures of Newt Scamander, are set about 60 years before the Harry Potter films but feature some of the same key characters when they were younger.

The first two of five planned films earned US$1.5 billion (S$2.02 billion) at the global box office, according to Box Office Mojo.

REUTERS, NYTIMES

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on November 08, 2020, with the headline Depp's Fantastic Beasts role vanishes after he loses libel case. Subscribe