Ridley Scott’s “All the Money in the World” was a movie
destined to be forgotten. It wasn’t one
that many were interested in seeing initially.
With a release date two weeks after “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” and in-between
“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Pitch Perfect 3” a week later, this wasn’t
something that was going to stand out in a crowded holiday season. Amid movies with Oscar potential, the studio
behind the film saw only one potential award within reach: Best Supporting
Actor for Kevin Spacey. The film flew so
much under the radar, that YouTube film critic Chris Stuckman admitted that he “wasn’t
even aware [Ridley Scott] was making [“All the Money in the World”].” The movie, in short, was in danger of coming,
going, and being forgotten.
Then disaster struck as Kevin Spacey – who many at the
studio felt would be the main selling point of the film – had a public falling
out with multiple sexual assault allegations.
In some ways, this might have been a blessing, as “All the Money in the
World” all of a sudden received a ton of free publicity. This was partly because Netflix cancelled
multiple projects involving Spacey, and many wondered if the public disgracing
of the two-time Academy Award-winner would drag this movie down as well. Scott, it turns out, either didn’t want to
find out, or (more likely) decided to use the publicity to his advantage with a
unique marketing idea: He would recast Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer,
spend millions of dollars on reshoots, and have it ready in time for it’s
December 22nd release date.
He ended up missing that deadline by three days, but ultimately, he
pulled it off…sort of.
Spacey was out, Plummer was in, and “All the Money in the
World” would move beyond the controversy and be judged by its own merits,
without being weighed down by Spacey’s baggage.
The problem is, Scott wasn’t successful in removing Spacey from “All the
Money in the World” completely. In fact,
quite the opposite happened: Spacey now dominates the movie more than he did
when he was actually in it, and by trying to remove him from the film, Scott
may have created a bigger long-term problem than he realized. First, we should childishly point out that
for all the noise Scott made of removing the actor (and doing it seamlessly),
he wasn’t able to truly pull this feat off.
A bust of Spacey is briefly seen in the final shot of the movie. Multiple scenes have Plummer clumsy digitized
into a scene he clearly wasn’t supposed to be in (or, worse, has his head
imposed on Spacey’s body).
Most hilariously, Spacey himself still appears in at least
one shot near the beginning of the film (pay attention to him getting off the
train in Saudi Arabia). All of these
things make Scott’s claims of being able to completely scrub Spacey from the
film more talk than anything (though, in all fairness, it’s still a pretty
impressive job when you take the time crunch into consideration). Now, this is the more humorous side of the
point I’m trying to make. If you think
the major problem Scott had was leaving in a few digitized heads and two shots
of Spacey, I’m sorry to say this is not what the title of this post is
referring to. No, the reason Scott
failed in removing Kevin Spacey from “All the Money in the World” is that, for
better or worse, Spacey has (ironically) become the face of the movie. Ridley Scott was very disturbed by the
allegations made against Kevin Spacey (as most of us were) and, not wanting to
associate with the man (and potentially have that man drag down his movie),
decided to do something drastic to disavow it from the actor.
The problem is, when he made the announcement it had the
opposite effect. While it should be noted
there was much excitement over removing the alleged “pervert” and replacing him
with a much classier actor (one who starred in “The Sound of Music” none-the-less)
was a great story, the story eventually came around to how it would happen. Once it was described how it would happen
there were questions if the Spacey version would ever see the light of
day. When Scott claimed that he didn’t
want that version released (despite it being in the can) there was curiosity on
how Spacey’s performance compared to Plummer’s.
Throughout all this, most critics are missing a very crucial point:
Ridley Scott failed to remove Kevin Spacey from the conversation. Aforementioned critic Chris Stuckman noted
that it was a good idea to replace Spacey, as his presence would have been “a
distraction” from the movie.
The irony of that statement is that Spacey STILL is a distraction
for the movie! The fact that he brought
it up in his review proves it. Heck, I
haven’t read a single review that hasn’t brought up the fact that Plummer’s
role was originally played by Spacey. I
haven’t written a review myself yet, but when I do you can be sure I will
discuss Spacey and how he was cut. The
original trailer for the movie floats on YouTube and has more views than the
later ones, as people desperately try to see what Spacey’s interpretation of
the performance would have looked like.
Heck, for all the negative publicity the man has had in the news, there
is no telling if people would actually opt NOT to see a movie with Kevin Spacey
in it (“Baby Driver” is still a favorite on pay per view, and we’ll have to see
if “House of Cards” survives a Robin Wright led finale)!
Most (if not all) of the current interest in “All the Money
in the World” is because Kevin Spacey was cut from the film. To deny his performance being seen is just
creating more curiosity about it.
Plummer is receiving some awards love because of the statement Scott was
making by replacing Spacey, but the man they wanted to distance the movie from overtook
the conversation despite all this. What’s
more, if Scott decides to keep the Spacey version locked in a vault, his ghost
will forever haunt the film, and that’s all people are going to be talking
about. In short, Scott failed and we all
need to admit that. In his quest to distance
the movie from Kevin Spacey, he unintentionally made Spacey the star and focus
of the show. To keep that version of the
movie hidden means the movie will only be judged in this light.
To take the narrative back, when it’s time for “All the
Money in the World” to be released on BluRay, it needs to have both
performances on it, where people can willingly choose to ignore Spacey should
they choose. Only then, I believe, will the
public (and press) stop focusing on Kevin Spacey, and instead just talk about
the movie (which, in my opinion, is pretty good all things considered). Oh, and if you think people will eventually
move on and have no interest in seeing the Spacey cut of the film…well, I want
to remind you that people are still counting down the day they can see “The Day
the Clown Cried” with Jerry Lewis.
A shot of the (now cut) Kevin Spacey performance.