Netflix Lost Just Shy Of $50 Million Over Canned Kevin Spacey Projects

Axing Kevin Spacey from productions after he faced allegations of sexual misconduct cost Netflix $48.9 million AUD, according to a report released by Deadline.

Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings presentation noted that it had to write-down (reduce the book value of) several assets due to “unreleased content we’ve decided not to move forward with“, although it didn’t specify which assets it was referring to. Chief finance officer David Wells described the write-downs as “related to the societal reset around sexual harassment“, with Deadline reporting that a Netflix source confirmed that the productions referred to where the final episodes of House of Cards and the film Gore.

Production on House of Cards was halted, with the decision later made to continue without Spacey and to replace him with Robin Wright as the star, with Netflix deciding to drop entirely the Gore Vidal biopic Gore, which was already in post-production at the time that the allegations against Spacey surfaced. Accusations against Spacey began after actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances on him when he was only 14 years old.

Compared to the $4 billion AUD in revenue that Netflix posted for their fourth quarter, $48.9 million is just a drop in a bucket, and a tiny price to pay in exchange for doing the right thing.

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