Ridley Scott knew he had to reshoot All the Money in the World

18 December 2017

Sir Ridley Scott knew within "36 hours" he needed to reshoot 'All the Money in the World'.

Sir Ridley Scott

The 80-year-old filmmaker has helmed the new John Paul Getty biopic which original starred Kevin Spacey as Getty Oil Company magnate J. Paul Getty.

In the past several weeks, Spacey, 58, has been accused by multiple men of sexual harassment and assault and as soon as Scott became aware of the scandal he came to the decision to drop the actor from his project and recast Christopher Plummer in the role.

Speaking to 'Entertainment Tonight', Scott said: "I knew as soon as they hit Kevin it was going to blow wide open and I contacted my partners and said, 'We should recast this right now. We shoot right now, we'll be out the same day.' Within 36 hours, I knew what I was going to do. Once I got his [Plummer] agreement, everything else was a matter of efficiency. I got a really efficient group."

The motion picture tells the story of his character, oilman John Paul Getty , who refused to pay a ransom after his grandson, John Paul Getty III, was kidnapped.

Fortunately for Scott most of the scenes in the thriller film involve Getty III's mother Gail Harris (Michelle Williams), and Getty's advisory (Mark Wahlberg) rather than Getty himself.

Spacey is said to have worked around eight to 10 days on the movie set.

Plummer - who is best known for starring as Captain Von Trapp in 'The Sound of Music' - agreed to join the movie because he "wanted to work" with Scott.

The 88-year-old actor said: "I really would have said yes anyway if I hadn't read it, because I wanted to work with him very much. I did read it, and said yes, and boom we were off to the races."

John Paul Getty III was just 16 when he was grabbed during a night out in the Piazza Farnese in Rome, Italy, on 10 July 1973 and then kept chained in a cave for six months with a ransom note demanding $17 million delivered to the family.

Initially his grandfather believed that his grandson may have staged the kidnap himself and refused to pay anything, also fearing if he paid up then all of his other grandchildren would be targets.

He also ignored the pleas of his own son, John Paul Getty Jr. to free him, and the pleas of John Paul's mother Gail as she had divorced his son and had refused his money to raise her family alone, however, when one of his ears was sent through the post to a newspaper along with a lock of his hair the tycoon eventually paid $2.9 million to free him.

Nine of the kidnappers were eventually arrested and two were sent to prison.

But John Paul - whose son is actor Balthazar Getty - never fully recovered from the harrowing ordeal becoming an alcoholic and drug addict. He eventually died at the age of 54 following a long battle with ill health which began when he took a cocktail of Valium, methadone and alcohol in 1981 which caused liver failure and induced a stroke which left him a quadriplegic and nearly blind.