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The big draw for All the Money in the World was going to be Kevin Spacey in a role that would likely have yielded his third Oscar. That was the plan until Spacey fell from Hollywood grace following accusations of sexual misconduct and a botched response.
The studio and director Ridley Scott made a bold decision. They would replace Spacey with Christopher Plummer, reshoot his scenes, edit it all and get it out a month and half later without delaying the release. I called it a brilliant move for many reasons, not the least being that they will be riding the wave of good faith for ditching Spacey. After all, this is the age of accusations.
After watching the trailers for both versions, I’m a little concerned. Spacey is, after all, a fantastic actor and while Plummer is great as well, he seems to fall flat. The studio apparently realized this too because they replace the big reveal of Spacey in the original trailer with unimportant tidbits of Plummer. There’s actually more Plummer in the new trailers than there was of Spacey in the old, but there’s no dramatic effect. The scenes are plugged in to alert people that Spacey isn’t in the new version, then skipped right over to focus on Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams.
There’s another very notable difference. The original trailers highlight art, cinematography, and drama. The new trailer is about intrigue and action. One might come away from the original trailer wondering if Wahlberg was a personal assistant or perhaps a banker. The new trailers make it crystal clear on multiple occasions that he’s ex-CIA, a spy, the guy you hire to do bad, bad things in action-packed ways.
If you only watch the new trailer, you might tell your family, “Hey, Marky Mark’s got a new action flick, y’all.”
There’s only one scene that is shared by Spacey and Plummer from the trailers. It’s the scene when they’re asked how much money they’d be willing to pay in ransom. Their one-word response, “nothing,” highlighted the differences between the two actors. Again, I don’t want to disparage Plummer who had no time to prepare and a complicated character to try to learn, but the difference between the two actors in the single line spoken is so glaring, it was a mistake for them to include Plummer’s version in the teaser at all.
I still expect this will be a good money and I intend on watching it if the reviews are positive, but I was hoping they’d play it up as a real Oscar contender with Plummer highlighted. If he could have pulled off the Academy Award win, it would have been a true testament to his wonderful career. Instead, they’re trying to play the espionage card. That doesn’t bode well for the rushed performance or the final product.
Here are the original trailer, the new teaser that features Plummer delivering the “nothing” line, and the full new trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EQuVfP-vXs
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