The former star of the Netflix series, and his associated production companies, have been ordered to pay millions for his early exit.
The production company behind 'House of Cards', MRC, has demanded that Kevin Spacey pay a substantial amount of money because of his firing, which led to extra work put being put into the final season of the drama series.
The political drama series was a Netflix Original that premiered back in 2013. Garnering high acclaim during its run, the final season hit a major stumble when news broke of the main star's sexual assault actions. While filming the final, sixth season, news emerged of Spacey allegedly making sexual advances on Anthony Rapp in 1986, who was 14-years-old at the time.
Following this, production on 'House of Cards' was suspended indefinitely. After numerous script revisions, the 13-episode final season was cut to eight episodes and resulted in Spacey's character Frank Underwood being written out of the series entirely. Robin Wright's character Claire, Frank's wife, stepped up to become the US President for the remainder of the series.
MRC will now get their compensation from the Kevin Spacey firing after years of legal battles. Due to having to quickly re-write the entirety of the final season, and on tight deadlines, they will receive $31 million.
According to the document submitted in 2019, the studio lost lost "tens of millions of dollars" during this time. It also stated that during his time filming the series, the disgraced actor had been "engaging certain conduct in connection with several crew members", which violated his contract's professional manner.
According to a report in Variety, the petition stated: "The arbitrator found that Spacey's conduct constituted a material breach of his acting and executive producing agreements with MRC, and that his breaches excused MRC's obligations to pay him any further compensation in connection with the show."
The 62-year-old and his companies M Profitt Productions and Trigger Street Productions will foot the bill. Since Anthony Rapp's sexual allegations against Spacey in 2017, many others have come forward to accuse the actor of sexual abuse, including six separate incidents which happened in England. Earlier this year, Spacey was cast in an Italian movie 'L’uomo Che Disegno Dio' ('The Man Who Drew God') as a police officer investigating a sexual abuse case.
Via Sky News.
