As Hollywood studios reportedly distance themselves from Johnny Depp, the actor continues to fight for an appeal in the UK court in his legal battle against The Sun, the publication that had called him a “wife-beater” in 2018.
Despite building a strong case against his former wife Amber Heard, the Pirates of the Caribbean star suffered a major defeat when the judge dismissed his libel action against the British magazine. The American thespian subsequently lost out on his role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts 3 and now, rumors seem to suggest that he’s having a hard time landing new jobs.
Amidst all this scrutiny, Depp’s fans have vocally defended the actor across social media platforms, with many of them kickstarting petitions against Heard to have Warner Bros. fire her from the upcoming sequel to Aquaman. In addition, a lot of folks are calling on the Mouse House to do the right thing and contract Johnny for the next installments in the Pirates series.
After all, we know that at least 2 more films are in the works, one a continuation of the main storyline and another one taking the form of a spinoff. The person who’s seemingly absent from these projects, however, is someone without whom many fans won’t even acknowledge the franchise.
Indeed, the petition to bring back Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the next Pirates of the Caribbean has now passed 400K signatures on Change.org, and is steadily winding towards the next milestone of half a million. Alas, history has proven time and again that such petitions are of little consequence to Hollywood moguls, but the studio would still be wise to reconsider their stance on this whole messy dilemma. I mean, even now, the actor’s fans number in the millions, and at the moment, they seem to be pretty upset about the kind of treatment that their favorite star is receiving.
With any luck, though, Johnny Depp will manage to turn the tables in the upcoming court hearings, not only saving his career prospects, but also everyone’s beloved Jack Sparrow in the process.