Amber Heard is at a very precarious juncture of her life. After she lost the defamation case brought against her by her ex-husband Johnny Depp about a fortnight ago, things are starting to look quite grim for the 36-year-old actress.
To start with, she has received a lot of hate from the general public for a perceived lack of genuineness; whether through the duration of the case, or in the years when she was romantically involved with Depp. While reports that she had been subsequently fired from Aquaman 2 have since been brought to question, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what will follow career-wise for the Texas-born star.
All the same, were this to be the end of her mainstream career, she can still look back with pride at a long list of movies she worked on – most of which were sensational successes at the box office. We take a look at the nine best-performing films on that list.
9 Never Back Down (2008) - $39.3 Million
The first movie on this list is Never Back Down, a martial arts action-drama film by Jeff Wadlow about a teenage high school student coerced into the world of underground fighting.
The Amber Heard portrayed Baja Miller, the love interest of main character Jake Tyler (Sean Faris).
8 Drive Angry (2011) - $41 Million
In one of the first, very major roles of Amber Heard’s career, she starred alongside the seasoned Nicolas Cage, himself a titan of box office earnings. She played Piper Lee in Cage’s action horror Drive Angry, which – despite bringing in more than $40 million from ticket sales, in fact lost money at the box office.
2011 was also the same year when Heard started dating Johnny Depp.
7 3 Days To Kill (2014) - $52.6 Million
3 Days to Kill is the story of ‘a dying CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter, [who] is offered an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment.’
Amber Heard played the part of Agent Vivi Delay in the film, a CIA assassin. 3 Days to Kill was produced on a budget of $28 million, and it nearly doubled that haul in box office returns.
6 The Danish Girl (2015) - $67.5 Million
In 2015, Amber Heard got married to Johnny Depp after four years of dating. She also made her sixth highest-grossing film at the box office: the biographical romantic drama titled The Danish Girl.
With Heard playing the Danish ballerina and actress Ulla Poulsen, the movie also featured Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener / Lili Elbe.
5 Zombieland (2009) - $102.2 Million
Zombieland was the second film in Amber Heard’s career that managed to breach the $100 million-mark at the box office, surpassing that figure by a few millions on top.
Her role in the movie was only a supporting one, as a character only known as 406: a zombie that was killed by main character Columbus (Woody Harrelson). Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin were among the other stars in Zombieland.
4 Pineapple Express (2008) - $102.4 Million
One year before the success of Zombieland, Amber Heard accomplished the unique feat of starring in a movie that raked in more than $100 million in cinemas worldwide for the first time.
She was controversially brought in to replace Olivia Thirlby in the Seth Rogen film Pineapple Express. She played a character called Angie Anderson. The commercial success of the movie was enhanced by the fact that it only cost $26 million to produce.
3 Magic Mike XXL (2015) - $123.6 Million
In September 2014, Amber Heard was confirmed alongside Elizabeth Banks, Donald Glover and a few others, as the official cast and synopsis for Magic Mike XXL was announced before filming began.
The movie was a sequel to the very successful Magic Mike, which had earned $167 million at the box office from a budget of only $7 million in 2012. Iron Horse Entertainment and RatPac-Dune Entertainment plowed in $15 million for the sequel, and were rewarded accordingly with yet another handsome return.
2 Justice League (2017) - $658 Million
The top two entries on this list are not in the least surprising. They feature Amber Heard as Mera in the DC Extended Universe, almost undeniably the biggest role of her career. She first portrayed the character in Justice League in 2017, after beating multiple other potential candidates to the part.
The break-even point for Justice League was around $750 million, a mark which the film missed by nearly $100 million. The reviews were also mixed at best, which led to the clamor for the release of Zack Snyder’s cut in 2021.
1 Aquaman (2018) - $1.1 Billion
In the year after the release of Justice League – and after Amber Heard’s divorce from Johnny Depp was finalized – she reached the zenith of her box office numbers. She returned as Mera in the James-Wan directed Aquaman, and was praised for her performance alongside the excellent Jason Momoa.
Aquaman brought in well over $1 billion, to become the 24th highest-grossing movie of all time, and the highest in Heard’s career.
