Days after Johnny Depp lost his high-profile libel case against British tabloid The Sun, the actor announced that he has stepped down from the Harry Potter spinoff franchise Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
“I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request,” Depp wrote in a short statement on Instagram.
Not long after Depp broke the news, a representative for Warner Bros. confirmed the actor’s departure. “We thank Johnny for his work on the films to date,” a studio representative said in a statement to Deadline. “Fantastic Beasts 3 is currently in production, and the role of Gellert Grindelwald will be recast. The film will debut in theaters worldwide in the summer of 2022.”
On Monday, a judge in London ruled against Depp in his lawsuit against The Sun, which he brought against the publication for a 2018 article in which they called the actor a “wife-beater.” As part of the trial, which took place over the summer, legal representatives for The Sun submitted 14 accounts of abuse relayed by Amber Heard, Depp’s ex-wife. Heard also provided testimony during the case and alleged she experienced “punching, slapping, kicking, head-butting and choking” throughout their marriage between 2013 and 2016.
On Friday, Depp called the ruling “surreal” and said he planned to appeal. “My resolve remains strong and I intend to prove that the allegations against me are false,” he wrote. “My life and career will not be defined by this moment in time.”
Depp’s casting at the infamous dark wizard in the Harry Potter franchise was kept secret before the release of 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He made a brief appearance in the final act of that film. His role was greatly expanded, however, for the 2018 sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
In Harry Potter lore, Grindelwald is the chief antagonist and former close confidant of Albus Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster who helped Harry Potter in his battle against Voldemort. The Fantastic Beast spinoff films focused, in part, on the Grindelwald and Dumbledore relationship (with Jude Law cast as Dumbledore opposite Depp), which was only briefly mentioned in the original Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling and subsequent films.
But Depp has been a contentious figure on which to build a franchise since before the release of the 2018 film. In 2017, after Heard made numerous allegations of assault against the actor, director David Yates, Warner Bros., and Rowling sought to defend the decision to keep Depp involved in the franchise.
“Honestly, there’s an issue at the moment where there’s a lot of people being accused of things, they’re being accused by multiple victims, and it’s compelling and frightening,” Yates said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “With Johnny, it seems to me there was one person who took a pop at him and claimed something. I can only tell you about the man I see every day: He’s full of decency and kindness, and that’s all I see. Whatever accusation was out there doesn’t tally with the kind of human being I’ve been working with.”