The Hollywood Reporter brings word that actors Mark Wahlberg (Patriots Day, Transformers: The Last Knight), Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea, Blue Valentine) and Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, Baby Driver, House of Cards) are in advanced talks to join Sony Pictures‘ All the Money in the World, the Getty kidnapping drama to be directed by Ridley Scott (The Martian, Gladiator, Alien: Covenant).
The film will follow the 1973 kidnapping of oil heir John Paul Getty III and his mother Abigail Getty/Gail Harris’ desperate attempt to get the boy’s grandfather, oilman John Paul Getty Sr (at the time the richest man in the world), to pay the ransom. Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman passed on the Harris role before Williams took it on, while Jack Nicholson was turned down the chance to play Getty Sr before Spacey took up the challenge. Wahlberg will play Fletcher Chase, an ex-CIA agent dispatched to Rome to deal with the kidnapping.
The grandson of the oil billionaire, Getty was snatched at age 16 with a $17 million ransom demanded. When the family didn’t reply fast enough to the ransom note, Getty’s captors forwarded an envelope that contained his ear, with a promise that more pieces would follow. Ultimately, the ransom was paid, Getty was found in southern Italy, and the kidnappers got away with the fortune. Getty III later became the father of actor Balthazar Getty (Lost Highway, Twin Peaks, When We Rise).
With a Black List screenplay by David Scarpa (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Last Castle), All the Money in the World is being produced and financed by Imperative Entertainment’s Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas, alongside Scott and Mark Huffam and Kevin Walsh of Scott Free, as well as Quentin Curtis and Chris Clark. Tom Rothman secured worldwide distribution for Sony. Production will begin on the biopic in Italy this May.
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