Vertical Entertainment responds to Kevin Spacey flop

World
Europe

US actor Kevin Spacey's latest movie has flopped big-time at the box office, taking in a mere 4,238 yuan (618 US dollars) as it opened to dire reviews in a handful of theaters across the country.

"Billionaire Boys Club," a crime drama based on a true story, in which Spacey co-stars alongside Ansel Elgort ("Baby Driver") and Taron Egerton ("Kingsman") earned a measly 864 yuan (126 US dollars) on Friday according to industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie, shot in 2015 and first released on video on demand in July, didn't fare much better for the rest of the weekend, earning 4,238 yuan (618 US dollars) from a total of 11 theaters.

"If going by the average ticket price to date of 64 yuan (9.27 US dollars), that means about six people showed up in each cinema on average," the magazine said. "And it's by far the worst showing Spacey's career."

US actor Kevin Spacey. /AFP Photo

The disgraced two-time Oscar winner has seen his career take a nosedive following allegations of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen men in the United States and Britain.

He was fired from the hit Netflix series "House of Cards" and was booted from a film – "All the Money in the World" – and replaced by Christopher Plummer just weeks before its release last December.

Earlier this summer, Vertical Entertainment, the distributor of "Billionaire Boys Club" said it planned to go ahead with the release of the movie, defending it as "neither an easy nor insensitive decision."

"We hope these distressing allegations pertaining to one person's behavior – that were not publicly known when the film was made almost two-and-a-half years ago and from someone who has a small, supporting role in Billionaire Boys Club – does not tarnish the release of the film," Vertical said.

"In the end, we hope audiences make up their own minds as to the reprehensible allegations of one person's past, but not at the expense of the entire cast and crew present on this film."

The film is based on the real life Billionaire Boys Club that was active in California in the 1980s and ran a Ponzi scheme linked to two murders.

Source(s): AFP