MOVIE NEWS – Johnny Depp has said he will never play Jack Sparrow again, but fans hope he and Disney will change their minds with a popular petition.

Many Johnny Depp fans are still waiting to see him as Captain Jack Sparrow again. Currently, Depp is in the middle of a defamation lawsuit after he sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for $50 million, claiming that she made up the abuse allegations that got him fired from Pirates of the Caribbean by Disney. According to Depp, there had been talks with Disney about Pirates of the Caribbean 6, but those talks stopped when Heard wrote an opinion piece in 2018 describing herself as a survivor of domestic violence.

Fans hoped Disney could convince Depp to bring him back for another Pirates movie and started a petition on Change.org demanding his return. The actor’s new trial has brought renewed attention to the petition, and many new signatures have been collected since the lawsuit began. At the time of writing, 285,000 people have signed the petition, and more names are being added as the number continues to rise.

You can read part of the petition description below, and you can add your name if you wish by clicking on Change.org.

“Johnny Depp has been a phenomenal actor throughout his career. Walt Disney’s Company removed Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. This was, unfortunately, because his ex-wife Amber Heard lied and claimed that Depp beat her. It turned out that Depp did not beat her, but the other way around. He was hitting her with pots and panned 24 hours a day as if that was okay. This may seem funny to some, but abuse against a man or woman should not be taken lightly. Now that this has come to light, Johnny Depp has yet to redeem this fake news… If you were falsely accused of something you didn’t do, and then there was proof that you didn’t do it and you were still treated as a bad person, wouldn’t you want justice?”

Will the petition help bring Jack Sparrow back? Even if Disney decides to go ahead with Pirates of the Caribbean Part 6 with Johnny Depp, the problem is that the actor no longer seems to want to. At his trial, he said he felt “betrayed” when Disney fired him after he had put so much effort into bringing Jack Sparrow to life in five different films. Depp felt the character deserved a “proper goodbye” to fans rather than being pulled under the rug.

Amber Heard’s lawyer asked her on the stand if it was confirmed that he would never return to Disney, even if they offered her “$300 million and a million alpacas”. Depp confirmed that yes, “it’s true”. And that sense of betrayal is currently making him reluctant to return to the Disney team anytime soon.

This is not the only filing that has been revived, thanks to the lawsuit. Another petition demanded that Warner Bros. remove Amber Heard from the upcoming sequel to the superhero film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. This is mainly because Warner Bros. kept Heard on board while asking Depp to step down from his role in Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, which many observers consider unfair. This petition has already surpassed 2.2 million signatures after gaining new momentum amid the legal dispute.

Source: Movieweb