Things continue to unravel for actor Kevin Spacey, who has just been fired from Ridley Scott’s new movie All the Money in the World, just six weeks prior to its release.
Spacey, who faces mounting allegations of sexual harassment and assault, has been removed from the cast of Scott’s forthcoming drama, two sources close to the film confirmed to CNN. The scenes starring Spacey as J. Paul Getty will be replaced with new footage featuring Christopher Plummer.
The upcoming biopic thriller has less than two months until its scheduled December 22 release, making the move to remove Spacey unprecedented and daring. Scott is determined to keep the film’s December 22 release date, and has already begun re-shooting key scenes.
The decision to remove Spacey, as told to CNN, was made by Scott and Imperative Entertainment’s Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas. Sony Pictures has also lent its full support to the move along with the cast and crew of the film, who unanimously decided to re-shoot all of Spacey’s scenes. But it’s not all good news–it was decided that the film would not be entered in the AFI Festival, and was pulled from the revered closing night slot.
A statement released Tuesday confirmed the film’s exit from AFI owing to the allegations around Spacey, where TriStar Pictures called All the Money in the World a “superb film” that was “more than worthy of its place of honor in the AFI Fest.”
“There are over 800 other actors, writers, artists, craftspeople and crew who worked tirelessly and ethically on this film, some for years, including one of cinema’s master directors,” said TriStar’s statement as reported by CNN. “It would be a gross injustice to punish all of them for the wrongdoings of one supporting actor in the film.”
The movie’s team faces huge challenges now, the most notable of which is meeting a target release date that’s only six weeks away. New scenes must be filmed, edited and then inserted into the finished movie. Moreover, all marketing materials starring Spacey are now entirely useless.