The reshoots are expected to be finished in time for the premiere in December.
Understandably there has been some drama surrounding the release of Ridley Scott’s All The Money In The World. The film has been positioned as an Oscar dark horse coming in under the wire to surprise audience and critics. It was also supposed to premiere on the prestigious final night of the AFI film festival where The Big Short launched its Oscars campaign. Well that all changed in the course of a few short days due to the cataclysmic fallout around Kevin Spacey.
Spacey played the part of J. Paul Getty and was likely to get a big push for Best Supporting Actor during the Oscars. Given the severity of the allegations against him though, he is losing work left and right. When Ridley Scott learned of the allegations, he couldn’t imagine the film going forward with Spacey in the pivotal role. Scott quickly pushed Sony to cancel the films starstudded premiere fearing that co-stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg would be inundated with questions about their Spacey’s conduct and that would overshadow the film.
Now Ridley Scott has unilaterally made the decision to recast the role of J. Paul Getty weeks before All The Money In The World‘s national release. According to Hollywood Reporter, Christopher Plummer has been hired to reshoot the parts of J. Paul Getty. He was apparently Scott’s first choice for the part, but the executives at Sony pushed him to get a showier name for the pivotal part. Luckily, Spacey’s work on the film was mostly done without the collective cast and his shooting on the film accounted for eight days of work. Williams and Wahlberg will have to come back to shoot selected scenes.
There are a number of reasons this is shocking while also signaling the hopes Sony has for the film. How much sway Scott had over the decision is anyone’s guess, but Sony had invested quite a bit of money into the film and had positioned it as an awards-caliber film. Whatever the cost is to assemble everyone back together and reshoot such a pivotal part of the film must’ve been deemed worthwhile for everyone involved. If nothing else, Ridley Scott seemed like he would contest the release of the film tooth and nail while Spacey was still attached to it. He isn’t the first director who has fought for their film recently, as others have fought The Weinstein Company for the rights back to their films as well.
The fact that Sony and Scott hope to accomplish this feat and still make the release date of December 22nd seems like high hopes. I assume that with All The Money In The World you can get anything done, but this is extremely unprecedented. Imagine if Plummer now receives Supporting Actor raves for his performance? This film has been fascinating entertainment even before release. Hopefully, All The Money In The World lives up to this crazy endeavor Scott and Sony are making to fix their investment.
Related Topics: Ridley Scott, Sony Pictures
