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In 2015, two years before the #MeToo Movement got into gear, actor Kevin Spacey was just another admired Hollywood celebrity whom everyone would love see star in a new movie. In November of that year he was cast as a high roller (a casino gambler) for the production of a movie called “Billionaire Boys Club”, based on the real life California social club of young wealthy boys who organized a get-rich-quick-scheme in the 1980’s. Spacey shot his scenes in December and January then moved on to shoot another role for Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” another month later.
Kevin Spacey’s career went smooth-sailing as always especially after the success of “Baby Driver” when it was released on June 2017. Two months later he went on to shoot a major supporting role for Ridley Scott’s new movie “All the Money in the World”. Everything was going great until that October in the middle of Hollywood’s Me Too Movement, actor Anthony Rapp boldly accused Spacey of making a sexual advance towards him when he was 14 years old. Spacey was quick to respond to that allegation and publicly apologized to Rapp, saying he did not recall having made such a pass on the young actor. He also officially came out as gay during his “apology”, which many people have criticized because of its sly attempt to change the subject.
— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017
Fifteen other people opened up by coming forward and alleging Spacey also made similar sexual misconduct and abuse towards them. His acting career was beginning to crumble. He was removed from the cast of the hit Netflix series “House of Cards” and the streaming service severed their ties with him. Ridley Scott spent 10 more million dollars just to remove Spacey from “All the Money in the World” by reshooting all the scenes he was in and replacing his role with Christopher Plummer. That movie later went on to be nominated for several awards and Plummer bagged a Best Supporting Actor nod.
That leaves behind “Billionaire Boys Club”, a film that was greatly affected by all of the Kevin Spacey controversy. The movie’s release date was very delayed and there was no marketing done because the producers found it difficult to market a movie with Spacey’s name attached to it. Vertical Entertainment, the movie’s distributor, made this statement;
“We don't condone sexual harassment on any level and we fully support victims of it. At the same time, this is neither an easy nor insensitive decision to release this film in theatres, but we believe in giving the cast, as well as hundreds of crew members who worked hard on the film, the chance to see their final product reach audiences.”
Although the movie was finished in 2016, “Billionaire Boys Club” was only finally released on August 17, 2018. And it performed very poorly at the box office. It took in a record-breaking low $126 (less than P7,000) on its opening day in ten U.S. cinemas. That means only a dozen people saw the movie’s premiere and statistically, the people who came to see it were most likely the cast and crew and their family. Internationally, the movie only grossed $1.4 million, a very tiny amount to cover the budget of $15 million. And to add insult to injury, according to critics, the movie isn’t even that good.