The long, tortured saga of adapting Martin Amis’ London Fields into a movie continues to be long and tortured, with yet another lawsuit inspired by its difficult production now popping up. In 2015, director Matthew Cullen sued the producers for allegedly attempting to add “revisionary elements” to his movie like “incendiary imagery evoking 9/11 jumpers edited against pornography,” as well as for failing to pay him. That lawsuit prevented the film from having its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, and in 2016, producer Christopher Hanley filed countersuits against Cullen and star Amber Heard for allegedly trying to undermine the film by publicly disparaging it and for refusing to participate in promotional events like the Toronto premiere.
One of the sticking points was apparently that Heard refused to do any nudity for the film, but Hanley says she had already agreed to it beforehand, which brings us to the latest London Fields lawsuit. As reported by Vulture, Heard is now suing Hanley and his wife—screenwriter Roberta Hanley—for going behind her back and secretly filming “explicit nude scenes” with Heard’s body double, which they intended to edit back into the film as part of a “Producer’s Cut” that would specifically make it look like Heard was actually nude. We don’t know the specifics of these nude scenes, but Heard’s lawsuit literally refers to the Hanleys as a “lascivious and sexpolitive couple,” and it says the scene was the sort of “pornographic” thing that Heard herself would “never have agreed to do.” Furthermore, these scenes weren’t included on the normal filming schedule, they were filmed after Heard had left the set, and only a “skeleton crew” was present for them.
From the way Heard’s lawsuit tells it, the whole production might as well have been a scheme to film graphic sex scenes with Amber Heard, and when she refused to participate, producers found someone who looks like her and filmed the scenes anyway. Plus, they did this while refusing to pay the director and while suing members of the cast and crew for talking shit about a movie that would’ve included profoundly tasteless 9/11 imagery.