Sony
Christopher Plummer in "All the Money in the World."
- Ridley Scott said he quickly decided to replace Kevin Spacey from "All the Money in the World" after hearing the news of his sexual harassment allegations.
- The director has been shooting replacement scenes with actor Christopher Plummer since November 20.
- Scenes are instantly being put into the final cut of the movie from the set so Scott has no concerns of the movie not making its planned December 22 release date.
If director Ridley Scott was nervous at all about replacing Kevin Spacey in his new movie "All the Money in the World" and still making the movie's original release date of December 22, he's certainly not showing it.
Scott was shooting new scenes in London with actor Christopher Plummer, who will replace Spacey, for the movie over the Thanksgiving holiday. Entertainment Weekly was on set and interviewed Scott, who said he learned about the sexual harassment allegations against Spacey while working on the sound edit for the movie.
"I sat and thought about it and realized, we cannot," Scott said. "You can't tolerate any kind of behavior like that. And it will affect the film. We cannot let one person's action affect the good work of all these other people. It's that simple."
Very quietly, Scott said he quickly put into motion a plan to cut out Spacey and shoot his scenes with another actor. In the movie, Spacey played oil tycoon billionaire John Paul Getty III, who refuses to pay the ransom to free his grandson from kidnappers.
Sony
Kevin Spacey in "All the Money in the World."
Scott's team was able to lock down the location they shot at with Spacey, and the handful of actors who were with him in his scenes, and then the director flew to New York to get Plummer to take the role. Outside of Plummer, Scott told everyone the shooting was simply pickup shots (additional shooting) so news wouldn't begin to leak out on his bold plan (until he wanted it to).
Scott told EW he did not call Spacey to tell him he would be cut out of the movie and that his decision wouldn't have changed if he had.
The director said he never planned to not release the movie on its planned release date. The additional shooting will reportedly cost north of $10 million.
"Because I know I can deliver," he said. "I move like lightning. I'm already two scenes ahead. It's simple! If you know what you're doing, you don't need 19 takes. You do one for the actor, one for me. It's all planned out. When you storyboard, you've already pre-filmed the movie in your head - the wide shots, close shots, establishing shots. You've gotten some of your weird ideas when you're quietly sitting, story boarding by yourself. After a while you learn to trust and listen to your intuition. And I listen to mine. I trust it."
Scott also isn't worried about critics and Oscar voters seeing the movie in time for award consideration. Because of how postproduction works today, there's no lag time between shooting and getting footage into a cut of a movie - if you know what you're doing, like Scott.
"I've been shooting since Monday [November 20] and in with the editor every night since then," he said. "We're not dealing with celluloid anymore; it's all digital, and I send [the footage each day] to [editor Claire Simpson] and she cuts it, and I can go in and look after shooting. Everything I've shot is already in [the final cut] up through yesterday morning."
Sony has even released a TV spot already with Plummer in it! Watch below. You better believe "All the Money in the World" will be in theaters December 22.