Kevin Spacey’s New Movie, ‘Billionaire Boys Club’, Earns Just $126 On Opening Night

Kevin Spacey‘s first film since #MeToo — Billionaire Boys Club — debuted on Friday, August 17 and made only $126 on opening day. The ensemble crime drama — also starring Taron Egerton and Ansel Elgort — opened in 11 theaters in select states after being released on Video on Demand last month. The film’s abysmal box office performance can be traced back to the multiple sexual misconduct allegations made against Spacey beginning last fall.

In the midst of the #MeToo movement, actor Anthony Rapp (Star Trek Discovery, Rent) felt brave enough to come forward with his own story of sexual harassment. Rapp released a statement that Spacey made sexual advances toward him at Spacey’s apartment when Rapp was just 14 years old. Spacey was 26 at the time. Spacey issued a statement saying that he was “beyond horrified to hear this story,” claimed he didn’t remember the incident — blaming alcohol — and apologized to Rapp. In the same statement, Spacey decided to come out as gay, a move that garnered criticism from many LGBT advocates who interpret the statement as a ploy to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia and to detract attention from the allegation.

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Since Rapp came forward, 14 more men — many of whom were teenagers at the times of the incidents — gave statements that Spacey had sexually harassed, assaulted, or attempted to rape them. Spacey was fired from the Netflix series House of Cards, and it was announced that the final season would focus on Robin Wright‘s character as the new protagonist. Director Ridley Scott also made the decision to recast Christopher Plummer in Spacey’s role in the film All the Money in the World. Scott re-shot all of Spacey’s scenes just seven weeks before the film’s release last December.

Independent film distributor Vertical Entertainment announced in June that Billionaire Boys Club would be released to select theaters in the United States for a limited time despite the allegations against Spacey. In a statement to The Independent, Vertical Entertainment said, “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 — does not tarnish the release of the film. We don’t condone sexual harassment on any level and we fully support victims of it. This is neither an easy nor insensitive decision to release this film in theaters, but we believe in giving the cast, as well as hundreds of crew members who worked hard on the film, the chance to see their final product reach audiences.” In spite of Vertical Entertainment’s wishes, audiences could not separate Spacey from the film.

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Additional financial reports from the theaters that showed Billionaire Boys Club showed that the film only garnered a total estimate of $618 for the entire weekend. This equates to an average of $56 earned per location and — with the national average ticket price of $9.27 — it can be estimated that only about six people saw the film at each theater. This is a record low for Spacey, who holds multiple Oscar, Tony, Golden Globe, and Emmy awards.

Article by Samantha Rosalbo

Samantha has a B.A. in English Literature and the written word has always been her passion. When she's not reading or writing, Sam likes to consume and discuss all kinds of nerdy content and enjoy time with her friends and family. She lives in New York and is always ready for adventure.

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