Scandals shake up Hollywood landscape

The fallout from the Harvey Weinstein scandal came with a sideeffect: It’s changing the television and movies we’ll see.

As production companies attempt to distance themselves from the accused, films and TV shows have paid the price. Ripples from the various scandals have already affected the upcoming Hugh Hefner biopic, House of Cards, This Is Us and the Lana Del Rey concert experience, among other things.

With each accusation, companies are left with a few options: Cancel the project Edit the project to remove any association with the accused

Suspend the project, pending more information

Move forward with the project as planned

All four have occurred in the month since the stories of Weinstein’s alleged serial abuse broke.

Perhaps the most severe reaction came last week, when HBO announced the cancellation of the movie version of the book series by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann titled Game Change, which Politico called “the most lucrative franchise in political journalism.” The cancellation was in reaction to a dozen women accusing Halperin of sexually harassing and assaulting them when he was political director at ABC News.

Penguin Press, meanwhile, chose not to publish his and Heilemann’s book about the 2016 campaign.

Fans also won’t be able to catch Halperin on Morning Joe any longer, as NBC terminated his contract in response to the accusations. Nor will they see him on Showtime’s The Circus.

The same day the Los Angeles Times published a piece in which six women accused director/producer Brett Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct, Playboy Enterprises put on hold all projects with Ratner’s production company, RatPac Entertainment.

Similarly, Netflix and production company Media Rights Capital suspended production of its flagship program House of Cards, after executive producer and star Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct involving a minor.

Some projects will simply be somewhat different when they reach the public.

Andy Dick was scheduled to appear in two movies next year, Raising Buchanan and Vampire Dad. He was fired from both amid allegations of sexual misconduct, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Dick has a long history of alleged sexual misconduct.

NBC cut an innocuous reference to Spacey in an episode of This Is Us. In the cut scene, one of the characters says, “I just got a part in a Kevin Spacey movie!”

Meanwhile, Del Rey said she will no longer perform her hit single Cola, which she said was somewhat inspired by Weinstein.