Kevin Spacey Loses Arbitration With A ‘House Of Cards’ Production Company To The Tune Of $31 Million

Kevin Spacey was fired from Netflix’s House of Cards after the actor was accused of sexual harassment and assault. He now has to pay over $30 million to the show’s production company MRC over breach of contract. The Wall Street Journal reports that “under the terms of the ruling, MRC was awarded nearly $31 million, comprising $29.5 million in damages and $1.4 million in attorneys’ fees and costs. The arbitrator’s ruling was made in October 2020 and Mr. Spacey’s appeal was denied earlier this month.”

In its claim, MRC said it had to scrap the first two episodes it was filming that featured Mr. Spacey and scramble to rewrite the entire season, which added significant costs to the show. MRC also said it had to reduce the number of episodes it had committed to Netflix to eight from 13, or it would have been unable to meet its deadlines with the streaming service. That greatly reduced the license-fee revenues the company was expecting from Netflix.

Since being fired from House of Cards, Spacey has booked a role in The Man Who Drew God, an Italian film about an blind artist who is wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child, and released a string of bizarre Christmas videos. It’ll be tough for him to top last year’s installment, titled “1-800 XMAS,” but I’m sure he’ll try.