This blog was written by both Blaine Harrington III and Blaine Harrington IV
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
In 1973, a 16 year old boy, J.P. Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Rome by a organized crime ring. The kidnappers demand they pay the ransom of $17 million from his mother, Gail Harris. The only person who has that amount of money is her father in law, J. Paul Getty, the wealthiest man at the time, but he refuses to pay for his grandson’s ransom.
Blaine IV: After Ridley Scott had completed “Alien: Covenant” he went straight to his next project “All the Money in the World”. Principal photography happened during the Summer of 2017. On October 29,2017 one of it’s main actors, Kevin Spacey, was accused of sexual assault. All of Spacey’s scenes had already been shot. Ridley Scott felt that Kevin Spacey’s sexual assault allegation would ruin “All the Money in the World” and all the work people put into it, so Ridley thought fast and decided to cut out Kevin Spacey, recast his part and reshoot his scenes. Christopher Plummer was Ridley Scott’s next choice to play J. Paul Getty. Christopher Plummer was about to take a Florida vacation when Ridley called saying he would like for him to replace Kevin Spacey’s part in “All the Money in the World”. Christopher said yes to the project because this was a perfect chance to work with Ridley Scott and he also liked the script. Ridley was relieved that Christopher Plummer said yes because that saved him time in looking for a new J. Paul Getty.
Blaine III: Although it caused a lot of work for them to quickly reshoot Spacey’s scenes, Plummer was actually more suited to the part (his look, being older than Spacey, etc). So they may have actually been lucky to have to reshoot, as the movie may have turned out better and they ended up getting the right person to play the character. Also, Plummer was a consummate professional and they quickly reshot and he saved the film and made it better.
Blaine IV: Christopher Plummer had to work fast on how he was going to perform as J. Paul Getty. Christopher never watched any of the footage with Kevin Spacey’s take on the character because he wanted to do his own original take. He brought something new into his performance. The toughest part for Christopher was learning all those long lines his character says. He felt like he was rehearsing for a play. Christopher didn’t feel rushed because Ridley Scott was calm enough to reshoot the scenes again.
Both Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams thought it was a right move for Ridley to replace Spacey. Ridley paid Mark Wahlberg an unexpected visit to his house to tell him he was going to reshoot the J. Paul Getty scenes and that he had replaced Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer and Mark understood why. Thing was Mark had grown a beard and was 30 pounds lighter for another movie he was doing. Mark had to cancel his Thanksgiving plans for the reshoots of “All the Money in the World” and Michelle Williams as well. She wanted to do whatever it took to help Ridley fix his movie. It wasn’t hard for Michelle Williams to get back into character for the reshoots because she says you work so hard on bringing a character to life and spend a lot of time playing it that it feel’s that it is apart of you. It cost at least $2.5 million to do the reshoots. They were able to reshoot the scenes in 9 days.
Michelle Williams agreed to do “All the Money in the World” because it was a huge opportunity to work with a legendary director like Ridley Scott and a team of creative people. She was able to find some old clips of the real Gail Harris being interviewed by the press. Michelle would also bring the character to life through her imagination and try to figure out the type of person she should be in the film. Michelle shows that Gail Harris loves every single one of her children with all her heart and cares too much. She will stop at nothing until her son is let go and returns home safely. Gail does everything she can to try get her boy back safe and sound while her ex-husband is stoned and the father in law won’t give up his money.
Before and after
Blaine III: These are the facts that I looked up.
1. Towards the end while John III was being released, John Paul Getty was dying slowly. John Paul Getty did not die at the time his grandson was released. He was released in 1973, Getty died in three years later 1976.
2. After Gail Harris and Fletcher Chase leave the bags of money for the kidnappers to collect and pay the ransom, the kidnappers leave John Paul Getty III in a construction site where they have him wait for Gail and Fletcher come to pick him up. Problem is John III doesn’t stay or listen and just runs off to a town. When Gail and Fletcher discover that John is not at the construction site they go looking for him. Meanwhile the kidnappers find out that Gail and Fletcher disobeyed their agreement because the police came (and a helicopter) The kidnappers want John III dead because of that and so they go after him. There was no big chase at the end with John III running away to that town. He was actually found alive at a gas station.
Blaine IV: The main reason why movies like this don’t base a lot of the stuff on fact is because the people who make them want to make it more intense for the people who see these movies. At the end it does say some of the events were changed.
My rating on “All the Money in the World” is five out of five stars
