Kevin Spacey played amoral politician Frank Underwood for five seasons on Netflix’s House of Cards, but was replaced by Robin Wright — who played Frank’s wife Claire — as the lead in the sixth and final season. Production company Media Rights Capital (MRC) had already shot a couple of episodes with Spacey before the decision to replace him was made. It had to scramble to produce rewrites and reshoots, losing a significant amount of money in the process. This happened around the time Spacey was publicly accused of sexual assault, first by fellow actor Anthony Rapp and then by others, and the prevailing theory was that Netflix and MRC were cutting ties with him because they didn’t want to be associated with the controversy. MRC itself seemed to rely on this theory when it took Spacey to arbitration in 2019, claiming that he had breached his contract by violating anti-harassment policies. The judge in that case ruled that Spacey owed MRC nearly $31 million in production costs.

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However, MRC and Spacey later came to an agreement under which Spacey would only have to pay MRC $1 million in exchange for Spacey helping MRC go after a bigger fish: Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., which was MRC’s insurer on House of Cards. For its case against Fireman’s Fund, MRC seems to be changing its legal strategy. Per The Hollywood Reporter, MRC isn’t claiming that Spacey wasn’t part of House of Cards Season 6 because he violated the anti-harassment policies in his contract, but rather because of sickness, specifically his sex addiction. Under the insurance policy, Fireman’s Fund would have to cover MRC’s production losses if they were “solely” caused by Spacey’s sickness. For its part, Fireman’s Fund is arguing that this is absurd, and that MRC clearly cut ties with Spacey over the actor’s misconduct and the attending bad publicity. A jury is now charged with deciding which way things go. If they find in MRC’s favor, Fireman’s Fund could have to pay the production company upwards of $100 million.

Invincible / Courtesy Everett Collection

This is the third time MRC has tried to get Firefund’s Fund to reimburse them for production losses, and the judge overseeing the case warned that it will be the last. If MRC wants to get paid, this will have to work. Spacey’s cooperation is the key difference this time around. He’s already agreed to turn over medical records and provide a court declaration that he may have taken his own life if he had to come back to make the final season of the show. At trial, he’s expected to testify that his illness required continued treatment (he checked himself into an Arizona rehab facility on November 2, 2017, almost immediately after the sexual assault allegations against him started to surface) and that he wasn’t able to work at that time, despite whatever other statements he may have made to the contrary. So MRC will argue that it replaced Spacey because the actor was too sick to work, in which case Fireman’s Fund would be liable because that’s covered under the insurance policy; and Fireman’s Fund will argue that MRC replaced Spacey because it didn’t want bad publicity, which isn’t covered by the policy. One complicating factor may be that Netflix canceled several projects involving Spacey around this time, including ones that were already complete, like Gore, a biopic about author Gore Vidal. Why, a jury might ask, would Netflix decide to pull an already-completed movie starring Spacey if not to avoid bad publicity? After all, his sex addiction wasn’t keeping him from completing that; it was already finished. But then again, Gore and House of Cards are different projects, so what was decided about one may not be relevant to the other.

Again, it will be up to a jury to sort through all of this. As for Spacey, he’ll be going back to court to face a new wave of sexual assault allegations in October.

Release Date

2013 – 2018-00-00

Network

Netflix