Amber Heard will officially return as Mera in ‘Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.’

Amber Heard will officially return as Mera in ‘Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.’

Aquaman 2 has been getting worrying test screenings, with one insider describing it as “boring” and potentially one of the worst DCEU movies.” It’s reportedly so bad that Jason Momoa will be cast as a completely different character in future DC projects once the reboot is in effect.

It doesn’t help that Warner Bros. Discovery seemingly had no idea how to handle Amber Heard’s Mera and her screen time. But it appeared the studio had finally settled on not reducing her role.

Still, it’s unclear how much screen time she’ll have in the sequel, especially since she testified during her defamation trial with Johnny Depp that a lot of her role was cut.

‘I fought really hard to stay in the movie — they didn’t want to include me in the film. 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 spoilers away, two characters fighting with one another,’ she said.

‘They basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch,’ Heard clarified.

There had been a massive Change.org petition to remove her from the sequel, which amassed more than 4.6 million signatures.

A rumor surfaced in June 2022 that Warner Bros. had not brought Heard back for the sequel and that they were in the process of re-casting the Mera role.

At CinemaCon 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery showed the first trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom exclusively to attendees.

The trailer opened with Randall Park’s Dr. Stephen Shin and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta attacking the surface world with some tentacles destroying a ship and Manta wielding a powerful Black Trident. It even included a quick peek of Nicole Kidman returning as Atlanna.

The trailer – which was not released online after the presentation – showcased Heard’s Mera in two brief shots of the trailer, according to Insider.

Mera was seen, ‘doing battle underwater’ though she has no dialogue in the trailer, while another report from The Direct added she was wearing a new white suit. 

He added that the issues were raised as the filming of the first Aquaman film concluded because of the ‘chemistry’ between Heard and Momoa.

‘I fought really hard to stay in the movie — they didn’t want to include me in the film. 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 spoilers away, two characters fighting with one another,’ she said.

‘Editorially they were able to make that relationship work in the movie. There was a concern it took a lot of effort to get there,’ he explained, noting that Warner Bros was considering ‘someone with better more natural chemistry with Jason Momoa and move forward that way.’