In Hollywood, there is a long-running tradition of similar projects going into development or being released concurrently — think “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon,” “Capote” and “Infamous,” and even more recently, Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” and Andy Serkis’s “Jungle Book: Origins.” So it goes then with the prolific workhorse Ridley Scott and his new effort “All The Money In The World” which is competing with Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy’s (the Oscar-winning team behind “Slumdog Millionaire” and “127 Hours”) new FX anthology series “Trust,” both of which will cover the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, heir to the Getty oil empire.
While Boyle and Beaufoy’s series is scheduled to air in January 2018 and has cast Donald Sutherland, Hilary Swank and Brendan Fraser in a comeback role, Scott has manged to get the edge by booking a release for his film in the prime awards-season slot of December this year.
After shooting on location in Italy this past summer, the first trailer has arrived for the period biopic which boasts the impressive trio of Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty, Michelle Williams as the kidnapped Getty’s mother Gail Harris, and Mark Wahlberg as negotiator Fletcher Chase leading the bill, while Charlie Plummer (“Boardwalk Empire”) will play the ill-fated Getty III.
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As Empire details, “All The Money In The World” chronicles the tense back-and-forth between the Getty family and the kidnappers for the $17 million ransom of the young heir.
Unfortunately for the younger Getty, his grandfather didn’t think much of his father or his party lifestyle, and, initially believing the teenager might have staged the whole thing himself, at first refused to pay. He was also unmoved by the pleas of Paul’s mother, as Gail Harris (Williams) had divorced his son and snubbed his money to raise her children alone. One of Paul’s ears was posted to the family, and eventually a $2.9 million sum was stumped up. It affected Paul for the rest of his life and he died aged 54. Nine of the kidnappers were arrested, and two were sent to prison.
It’s juicy stuff and filling out the cast of this sweeping epic are Timothy Hutton, Olivia Grant, Romain Duris, Charlie Shotwell and Marco Leonardi.
“All The Money In The World” is directed by Ridley Scott from a Black List-script by David Scarpa. The film opens on December 8th.
