I imagine it must feel pretty terrible to be Johnny Depp right now after a court ruled that The Sun were perfectly within their rights to label him a wife beater during his libel case and he was subsequently fired from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ series, but it turns out that there might be a silver lining to this all for him. Kinda.
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This is because it seems that Depp will walk away with at least $10 million for his part in the film even though he only managed to film one scene before he was asked to step aside from the role. Depp was on what’s known in the industry as a ‘pay-or-play contract’ which requires him to be fully compensated whether or not the film is made or if he’s recast, so that’s how he’s entitled to this sum.
Obviously this isn’t going to make up for the fact that the whole world now thinks of him as a wife beater, but I suppose it might help pay the massive legal fees that he will no doubt be incurring as a result of the whole trial and his upcoming one against Amber Heard in the United States next year. For what it’s worth, Depp revealed that he will be appealing against the court’s verdict on the matter in an Instagram post:
Yeah, I’m not really sure that the stigma from this verdict is ever going to go away even if he does win an appeal and manage to beat Amber Heard in the case next year, but I suppose Depp feels like this version of events isn’t what happened so he has to try. Everyone else is probably going to continue to look at him as a scumbag though whatever happens. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
For more of the same, check out all the crazy stuff that was revealed during the Depp/Heard/The Sun trial. Literally couldn’t make a lot of it up.