ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

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KevinEK
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#16 Post by KevinEK »

A new spin is being thrown on Wahlberg, although I'm not sure if it's his people trying to do this indirectly or if it's someone from WME, which is more likely.
Their version of the story is that Wahlberg's contract didn't include any reshoots at all, and that Wahlberg felt he'd taken a big salary cut to agree to do this movie at all. Williams' contract included reshoots.
But they are parsing a sneeze here.
The issue remains that Wahlberg took a secret payday while the other Above-the-Line people worked for free. It remains a selfish move, particularly the part where he kept it a secret.

I should note that I would have less of an issue with Wahlberg's (and his agent's) conduct here if they'd been up front about what they were doing. They could have just said that they were not willing to do these reshoots unless Wahlberg was paid for them. There's nothing wrong with that and they had no reason to hide it. I could even have understood this scenario if Wahlberg had presented an issue about shooting another film that this reshoot was blocking or delaying. But Wahlberg never said any of those things, and as I understand it, Williams is actually the one who was in a position where the next project was impacted by her return to this film for 9 days.


Regarding your thoughts on Michelle Williams, your sarcasm is showing. Nobody said that it was controversial to point out that Mark Wahlberg has sold more movie tickets, regardless of the quality of the movie. (I don't think either of us would be standing here defending the high intellectual content of the Transformers movies or Daddy's Home...) My point wasn't about her acting abilities. I was referring to the reason why Williams is regularly cast every year in multiple feature films. Yes, she's a good actress. And yes, she is a draw for people who go to movies like Brokeback or Blue Valentine or Manchester. I expect she'll continue to be cast in movies for a good long time to come, and she'll continue to do interesting work. To be fair, we should note that actors like Mark Wahlberg come and go in the spotlight over the long term, while actors like Michelle Williams tend to stick around. Case in point: Burt Reynolds. In the 1970s, Reynolds was the biggest movie star in the year - regularly drawing massive salaries and filling movie theaters across the country. Flash forward 20 years and he found himself struggling to make a comeback, in addition to going through a humiliating public divorce. Flash forward to today and the man is a broken shadow of his younger self, reduced to selling his memorabilia and barely able to walk. Steven Seagal had a similar arc, albeit with far less talent than Reynolds had walking in. Seagal's arc was a lot shorter, given how little someone in his range can actually do onscreen. Mark Wahlberg has been smart enough to put himself into the producer's seat, so that he will at least have that to fall back on in a few years. Brad Pitt and George Clooney have taken similar approaches.

Re the Golden Globes, it sounds like you were watching it for the car-crash snarking fun. I honestly have never seen the point of that, but I get how it can be entertaining - particularly if one watches from that perspective. But I do call shenanigans about the notion that celebrity behavior does not bother you. If it was just a curious puzzle, you wouldn't regularly post about it, at times in an outraged tone. And I get it - these people can be annoying. They can be infuriating. I just don't see why you'd want to subject yourself to something that you know is only going to have a negative effect. I don't watch the Golden Globes because they have no meaning in the industry, and they're more of a joke than anything else. To me, the behavior there really is a curiosity, but not enough of one for me to watch.

As for why I would watch conservative-leaning programming like Fox News or listen to AM radio programming, it's because I believe in listening to everyone's point of view. I don't need to agree with Bill O'Reilly to acknowledge that he has at time made cogent points. If I only listened to Pacifica Radio and ignored everything else, I would have very little understanding of the world and anyone else in it. As far as websites like this one, I continue to contribute because we're discussing things that are part of the world in which I work. I'm curious to hear what people think about that work, which has always been the mainstay of this site. We have many things in common when it comes to our interests in film scores, classic television, etc. But I do reserve the right to speak up when I see something that's way off. That may not be popular, but it's the way I've conducted myself not only here but where I regularly live and work.

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AndyDursin
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#17 Post by AndyDursin »

But I do reserve the right to speak up when I see something that's way off. That may not be popular, but it's the way I've conducted myself not only here but where I regularly live and work.
I just watched NBC Nightly News. They reported on this story the same way every other outlet has: that this is a "gender pay gap outrage" (as the headline even appeared on-screen) and it was framed the same way as every news story out there, that a female actress made nothing while the male star made out like a bandit.

Obviously there are other factors but most people don't really seem concerned about those other factors, be it the rest of the filmmakers not taking cash, or Wahlberg having (or not) some kind of contractual clause in his deal. Listen I don't think he looks great here from a PR perspective by any means -- but still, it's his career, I'd guess he's fine with taking grief when he's making off with another $1.5 million. Most people wouldn't care either how it looks when talking about that kind of money.

Either way, I didn't make this crap up, it's how the story was reported. That's what outraged Apatow and a good amount of celebrities who blurbed on it on Twitter and elsewhere.

I'm not really sure even after all your replies what it is you are offended by. The fact that I think people who reduce this to a base gender issue are morons? Maybe that's strong but I think someone complaining on that level is also "way off," as they are saying that every leading actress should be making the same as their male counterparts. That's like people who think WNBA players should get paid as much as NBA players. And plenty of actresses ARE making big money. Should every male actor playing opposite Jennifer Lawrence be making the same as her too?

This argument -- which is what is driving this story -- I find dumb. This situation is a lot more complicated than that but the way the media is reporting on it, and what most seem to be outraged about, is precisely this stupid "gender pay gap" story the media is driving. And it fits right in with the narrative they've used recently with Hoda not making Matt Lauer's salary right off the bat on The Today Show -- as if the fact he was #1 for how many years had nothing to do with the contract he most recently signed.

KevinEK
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#18 Post by KevinEK »

The "gender pay gap outrage" is simply because this is an obvious situation where two co-stars are receiving wildly different paychecks. I agree with you that the actual circumstances here are a little different, for the reasons we've discussed.
But there still is very much a real issue of pay disparity, and we continue to see it documented across the country.
I should acknowledge that in my position, as a DGA AD, my rate is the standard guild scale rate, which would be the same whether it was a male or female AD doing my job. On the other hand, it's also noted in my business that there are many more males accepted as 1st ADs and directors than there are females accepted in those positions. There are plenty of females working as 2nd ADs, but not so many in the higher ranks. I've personally worked with a fair number of female producers and directors, but I'm aware that there is a disparity. (When I was on JAG, Don Bellisario would not even hear of having a female director on the show, and we never had a female 1st AD or UPM aside from a single special episode where they let the female 2nd AD move up for a week. NCIS barely countenanced having any female directors until after Don was removed from the show, with the exception of two women who were allowed to come in once or twice here and there. NCIS has also never had a female AD at any rank above 2nd AD in its entire 15 year history, and that's a heck of a record.)

I honestly don't know what Wahlberg thinks here or what his agent was thinking in terms of the PR, but you're correct. This is bad publicity for him. It would have been simpler if he'd just been open about this. All he had to say, or frankly all that Ridley Scott would have needed to say would be, "Everybody came back for free. We're not getting paid. Except Mark, because he wouldn't return unless we paid him as he was doing the movie for a lower fee as a favor to us." Or something like that. Just be open and honest about this. The idea of showing up on set, knowing he'd worked a big payday for himself on top of anything going to his co-stars, who were being paid nothing further, is a truly unfriendly one. It's what we call an xxx-xxxx move.

What offended me here is the tone that it's lunacy to be irked by behavior like Wahlberg's, or the obvious divide that it illustrates. The tone comes across as condescending to "liberal Hollywood" and to "Hollywood hypocrites" and all that. I don't think you directly meant that, but the tone comes across in that fashion. You're correct that some actresses are making big money. Although Jennifer Lawrence had that mess a few years back with American Hustle, as I recall.

I agree with you regarding WNBA vs NBA and about Hoda vs Lauer. In the same way that it would make no sense to pay Charlie Rose's replacement the same salary, or to pay Tucker Carlson what O'Reilly was getting. Reality doesn't work that way.


Let's get back to what is actually important: The movie itself. Have you seen it, and do you agree that Plummer's performance is actually a better fit than Spacey, given what we've seen from the trailer? I've watched both trailers and the completed film, and I find Plummer's performance quite good. Spacey was distracting - I spent the trailer looking at his makeup and mannerisms, and I suspect I would have spent the movie during the same. As opposed to Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour, where there was plenty of heavy makeup but it didn't announce itself - and Oldman's lifelong gift has been to disappear into his characters. Spacey doesn't have that gift - you always know you're watching him play the same kind of character.

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AndyDursin
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#19 Post by AndyDursin »

I didn't see it but look forward to watching it at home. These days my theatrical film going is extremely limited plus with things going on at home this fall and an almost 4 year old, I've been unable to see a whole lot (I've made it out to Last Jedi, Blade Runner and It since September but that's it).

Would not surprise me if Plummer was more effective. His age alone would be more appropriate to the role, and while Spacey's name and HOUSE OF CARDS association may have slightly helped the movie commercially (who knows), my gut feeling was they made the right call in recasting/reshooting.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#20 Post by Paul MacLean »

Brief interview with Ridley Scott, where he discusses replacing Spacey and saving the film...


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Monterey Jack
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#21 Post by Monterey Jack »

Considering how little money it made, replacing Spacey didn't really "save" the movie in the long run. Even the Oscar nomination for Plummer was less due to the merit of his performance (which was very good) and more to Hollywood patting the movie on the back for omitting Spacey's performance in the Pervertgate purge '17. This is also why James Franco's terrific performance in The Disaster Artist got shafted (due to his purported dalliances with underaged girls) and swapped out for a stock Full Retard turn by Denzel Washington in otherwise forgotten Roman J. Israel, Esq..

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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#22 Post by AndyDursin »

It may not have done anything for it financially, but it definitely saved the cast and filmmakers fom having to talk about it during the publicity tour and having to suffer an enormous amount of backlash. It certainly would have been a big problem had they not done the reshoots, to the point where the film may have just been tagged "the Kevin Spacey movie" and been buried totally under the controversy.

I also wonder, and they are not going to say it, that it gave them an excuse because Spacey wasn't any good. I saw those trailer clips of him in heavy "old man" make up and he looks less than convincing to say the least. At least Plummer IS an old man! So perhaps it was an effort to improve the product, though they would never admit that.

Either way, the issues off the screen were a lot more interesting than what ended up on it. Very minor and, frankly, dull movie for me at least. The FX series TRUST is a nutty but far more engaging treatment of the exact same subject, even if both of them seem to stray far from reality.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#23 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:41 pm I also wonder, and they are not going to say it, that it gave them an excuse because Spacey wasn't any good. I saw those trailer clips of him in heavy "old man" make up and he looks less than convincing to say the least. At least Plummer IS an old man! So perhaps it was an effort to improve the product, though they would never admit that.
I must admit, one of my bigger pet peeves in movies is young or middle-aged actors coated with unconvincing latex to make them into old codgers (Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar comes immediately to mind :?) when they could have just hired an older actor in the first place, so I don't know why the studio ostensibly "forced" Scott to hire Spacey because he was more of a box-office draw (since when?), put him in godawful and unconvincing latex appliances, only to have to eat all of that time and effort and throw good money after bad blowing another ten million on the reshoots for a movie that had limited commercial prospects in the first place. :oops:

Remember Guy Pearce made up to look like a hundred-year-old man in Prometheus? What was the point of THAT?! All he looked like was a fortysomething actor covered in latex. And I know there was a pre-release short with him at his current age to explain that, but they still could have hired an actor in his eighties and made the effect more convincing. I recall that they did some makeup tests on Tom Hanks to age him up to over a hundred in The Green Mile, but Frank Darabont thankfully didn't like how he looked in the prosthetics, and hired elderly actor Dabs Greer to play his character as an old man instead.

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AndyDursin
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#24 Post by AndyDursin »

so I don't know why the studio ostensibly "forced" Scott to hire Spacey because he was more of a box-office draw (since when?), put him in godawful and unconvincing latex appliances, only to have to eat all of that time and effort and throw good money after bad blowing another ten million on the reshoots for a movie that had limited commercial prospects in the first place. :oops:
My guess is it was an attempt to draw in the HOUSE OF CARDS crowd...but unless the film had been a truly good movie and critical hit (that would've generated word of mouth), it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.

That's what I was saying before about Michelle Williams. Nobody goes to see a movie because she's in it. This has nothing to do about her performances or qualities as an actress (though I didn't think she was particularly strong in this film) -- bottom line is she's not a draw, and neither is Spacey. And really, neither is Wahlberg, at least not outside the Michael Bay/action genre.

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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#25 Post by Eric Paddon »

Monterey Jack wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:06 pm I must admit, one of my bigger pet peeves in movies is young or middle-aged actors coated with unconvincing latex to make them into old codgers (Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar comes immediately to mind :?) when they could have just hired an older actor in the first place, so I don't know why the studio ostensibly "forced" Scott to hire Spacey because he was more of a box-office draw (since when?), put him in godawful and unconvincing latex appliances, only to have to eat all of that time and effort and throw good money after bad blowing another ten million on the reshoots for a movie that had limited commercial prospects in the first place. :oops:
Anyone now have visions of Kate Winslet made up to be 100 in "Titanic"? :D

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Monterey Jack
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Re: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD - Ridley Scott, December

#26 Post by Monterey Jack »

Eric Paddon wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:29 pmAnyone now have visions of Kate Winslet made up to be 100 in "Titanic"? :D
I still remember Winona Ryder as an "old woman" in Edward Scissorhands. :lol:

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