Kevin Spacey’s character Francis Underwood was subsequently written off the Netflix series House of Cards due to sexual misconduct allegations, and now he has to pay for it.
Kevin Spacey’s three-year legal battle finally comes to an end after his alleged behaviour tanked his role on the hit TV show House of Cards.
Due to complaints of sexual misconduct, the 63-year-old defendant hasn’t only seen his role in House of Cards disappear, he was written off other projects as well due to the nature of the allegations. The film titled All The Money In The World, directed by Ridley Scott, also saw fit to replace Spacey after filming ended, with Christopher Plummer taking the reins.
The allegations started with a claim made by fellow actor Anthony Rapp, where he alleges Spacey assaulted him while he was 14. Then the proverbial floodgates opened surrounding the actor, when more accusations were directed at him, Vox reports from 2017.
The fallout from these allegations comes to monetary value. Of course, reshooting an entire series of television where the main character needs to be completely removed tends to tank a show. Media Rights Capital (MRC) at the time of the allegations when filming the show said “Media Rights Capital and Netflix are deeply troubled by last night’s news concerning Kevin Spacey. In response to last night’s revelations, executives from both of our companies arrived in Baltimore this afternoon to meet with our cast and crew to ensure that they continue to feel safe and supported. As previously scheduled, Kevin Spacey is not working on set at this time,” IGN reports in 2017.
Today, all of this ugliness came to an end with Kevin Spacey being denied an appeal based on the monetary value he cost the company by severely breaching contract in the allegations. The arbitrators ruling came nearly 13 months ago but was not able to come out as public due to the state of appeal, Kevin Spacey is ordered to pay nearly $31 million dollars in damages.
This is not only due to the negative light House of Cards was viewed in following the allegations, the final season had to be shortened to 8 episodes from 13, and the reshoot itself cost MRC a pretty penny, the case suggests. Suspending production on the show was also necessary at the time, costing the studio even more in production.
Three private arbitrators declined the appeal and agreed with MRC’s claims of damages, in a statement MRC said “The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability,” The New York Times reports.
At the time of writing, Kevin Spacey has issued no response to the public regarding the ruling at this time.
