Well, this is certainly surprising.
In what’s being called an “unprecedented, bold move,” director Ridley Scott has decided to remove Kevin Spacey from All the Money in the World, which has already completed filming. In fact, the pic was ready to make its debut at AFI Fest, which gets underway this week, before being pulled for obvious reasons. Now, the studio’s gone one step further and will be cutting the disgraced actor out of the movie entirely, replacing him with Christopher Plummer.
According to Deadline, reshoots will begin immediately, with Plummer stepping into the role of J. Paul Getty, which was the part Spacey initially had. Despite this major change, All the Money in the World is still expected to meet its December 22nd release date and the entire cast and crew are all on board with the decision here. As you can imagine, everyone involved was worried that having the House of Cards star remain in the film would keep audiences away and after having worked so hard on it, obviously no one wanted that.
For those unfamiliar with the project, All the Money in the World recounts the remarkable 1970s kidnapping case that involved Paul Getty, the unruly teenage grandson of ultra-rich oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. Plucked from his hometown in the middle of the night, Getty junior was thrust into a life-or-death situation after his kidnappers demanded a $17 million ransom from Getty senior, but the real twist in the tale comes when the man outright refuses to shell out the necessary funds, pushing their already fragile grandfather-grandson relationship to the brink of collapse.
It’s a truly engrossing family saga, and it’s small wonder why David Scarpa’s screenplay wound up on Hollywood’s famous Black List of un-produced scripts. Sony and Ridley Scott quickly stepped in, though, and despite this last minute change in casting, we’re confident that everything will turn out alright for the film.
Ridley Scott’s certainly a director who can deal with this type of thing and hopefully, All the Money in the World will still find itself positioned as the Oscar pic it so clearly wants to be.