Vice-grip of money on Getty
WHAT WORLD’S RICHEST MAN’S MISERLINESS REPRESENTED EMOTIONALLY
ll The Money in the World began when producer Quentin Curtis optioned John Pearson’s book on Getty, Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J Paul Getty, that focused specifically on the infamous kidnapping of the oil tycoon’s grandson.
He brought the project to screenwriter David Scarpa.
“I, of course, knew about that kidnapping, but really I had always wanted to do something about money and how it controls and shapes people’s lives.
“When you think about it, so many of our decisions, from who we choose to stay married to and where we choose to live and what jobs we choose to take, are driven by that.
“And, obviously, people without money are affected in the sense of their choices and options are limited.
“But money even influences the wealthy emotionally, in that it gives them freedom and power, but then what to do with that?
“When Quentin told me about the project, my first reaction was ‘oh the kid without the ear?’ and he said, ‘well you know another interesting fact here is that Getty at the time was the richest man in the world and the ransom was well within his means, he had a billion dollars and the kidnappers asked for $17 million, which was like a parking ticket to him and yet he refused to pay it’.
“That got my attention. I said, ‘I’m in’,” Scarpa recalls.
It was Getty’s notorious miserliness and what that represented emotionally that intrigued Scarpa.
“The obstacle wasn’t paying the ransom and rescuing his grandson – the obstacle was psychological. He just couldn’t bear to part with his money. And so the story goes from being a standard issue thriller to something that examines the hold money has over this man, how it affects his family and even the kidnappers.
“The most important thing, the life of a child, and he can’t bring himself to pay for it for all sorts of reasons. Even this wealthy man, the richest in the world, is held hostage by money,” Scarpa notes. Scarpa worked on the script, shaping the structure based on the kidnapping itself and combining two venerated genres in a new way.
“The kidnapping provided the spine of the script, although we do go back in time to the childhood of the boy and background into who Getty was. The biggest structural challenge was balancing the kidnapping drama with a classic biopic, and we sort of smashed those genres together. The idea was to move back and forth between this thriller and this Shakespearean family drama at the same time,” Scarpa says.
Scarpa’s script landed on the 2015 Black List. Producers Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas of Imperative Entertainment read it and immediately found the story captivating.
“It was huge in scope,” the Imperative partners remarked. “A period piece spanning three continents, telling the unbelievable story of a personal tragedy that struck one of the world’s most wealthy and powerful families.
“We knew immediately this story, if done properly, would make a beautiful and compelling film. From that moment, we made it our mission to bring this story to the big screen and there was only one director to do it.”
Ridley Scott wasn’t keen on a movie about the Getty crime until he read it. “The word ‘Getty’ conjured up a specific memory for me. I was familiar with the incident and I wasn’t particularly interested.
“But within a few lines and after meeting Dan and Bradley, I knew I was in good hands.
“A great script like this is the jewel in the crown. When I read it, I thought wow. The material and the script were great and I absolutely wanted to make this movie,” Scott recalls.
Scott notes the fascinating dichotomy of J Paul Getty – his famous tight-fistedness made headlines, but so did his business acumen and, ultimately, his philanthropy.
“He had guts and brains. You don’t fly into the Middle East in 1948 and buy up oil and land rights unless you have courage and cleverness. He was a brilliant man, but all that fell away when he was asked how much he would pay for his grandson and he said ‘nothing’. Everyone was shocked to the core.
“But he was also sending a message to the kidnappers. People who kidnap are essentially terrorists and today, governments won’t negotiate with them. So, in a way, Getty was being modern in his approach.”
Initially, Kevin Spacey played the iconic tycoon. But when many men came forward alleging the actor had sexually harassed them, Scott and Imperative Entertainment replaced him entirely with Christopher Plummer. – Citizen reporter