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Johnny Depp has spoken about his exit from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, claiming the studio behind the film asked him to “retire”.
Having become one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars thanks to the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise and other hits, the star was cast as villain Gellert Grindelwald in 2016’s Fantastic Beast And Where To Find Them, as well as the 2018 sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald. However, his involvement in the third film was jeopardised due to highly publicised legal battles.
In 2018, the star’s ex-wife Amber Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she alleged she was domestically abused by the actor. In 2020, Depp lost a libel case in the UK against The Sun for referring to him as a “wife beater” in their reporting. The situation led to Depp being dropped from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, with the role of Gellert Grindelwald being recast with Mads Mikkelsen for the third film, The Secrets Of Dumbledore.
In 2022, Johnny Depp won a defamation case against Heard, awarding him $10million (£8million) in compensatory damages and $5million in punitive damages. The jury found that Heard’s statements about her marriage were “false” and that she acted with “actual malice”.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Depp looked back on the situation with his Fantastic Beasts role, claiming studio Warner Bros asked him to step down from the part.
“It literally stopped in a millisecond, like, while I was doing the movie. They said we’d like you to resign. But what was really in my head was they wanted me to retire”.
The star’s recollection of his response to the request was: “Fuck you. There’s far too many of me to kill. If you think you can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt you’re gravely mistaken”.
The Crimes Of Grindelwald was Depp’s last major studio film, although the actor has since appeared in a handful of independent films as well as some documentaries. He reunites with Penelope Cruz, his former co-star on the 2001 drama Blow and the fourth Pirates film, in the upcoming thriller Day Drinker.
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