After years of being ostracized from the film industry, actor Kevin Spacey will return to the big screen. Harassment allegations kept him away from the industry after his appearance in “Billionaire Boys Club” in 2018.
His acquittal at the end of last month may have marked the beginning of his comeback, which the actor had been anticipating before learning of the ruling. Due to the lawsuits, Spacey lost multiple roles, among them that of Frank Underwood, main character of the Netflix series “House of Cards,” although he brought a version of the character back in short videos, to wish people a merry Christmas as well as deny the charges against him. “The Man Who Drew God” was an exception.
'Peter Five Eight'
Aug. 25 will be the premiere of “Peter Five Eight”a film written and directed by Michael Zaiko Hall starring Spacey as Peter, "a charismatic man in a black sedan, who shows up in a small mountainside community," according to World of Reel.
Jet Jandreau plays Sam, a glamorous real estate agent who is revealed to be unhinged and a troubled alcoholic with a dark secret, while De Mornay plays Brenda, whom Peter targets for information at the urging of his powerful and shadowy boss, Mr. Lock.
'Control'
Spacey could also appear on the big screen this December, at least in the U.K. This was announced by Strath Hamilton, CEO of the production company behind the film “Control,” who also said that they are in talks to sell the film to U.S. distributors.
Hamilton anticipated this information in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in which he also argued that the industry had a duty to support “Control” after the treatment Spacey had received, as it should do with all canceled performers.
The indie thriller has already sold, according to Hamilton, in markets where "social media matters and culture wars are not top of the agenda," such as Latin America and Korea.
In the film, Spacey plays a man who takes control of British Home Secretary Stella Simmons' autonomous car. In the first trailer, the actor's iconic voice can be heard explaining to Simmons that he has hacked the vehicle's controls. Why? "I want to talk."
Will 'Gore' come out of the drawer?
"We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film ‘Gore,’" reads the same statement in which Netflix announced that Spacey would not continue on “House of Cards” in 2017.
The film produced by and starring the American actor was in post-production. It tells the story of the multifaceted writer Gore Vidal.
Reports at the time speculated that the film might include sexual relations between Vidal, played by Spacey, and young men, which was interpreted as an inducement to cancel the release of the film. As Tim Teeman wrote in The Daily Beast:
Sexually, Vidal, like Spacey apparently, was attracted to younger men, especially those appearing as heterosexual, or seemingly heterosexual as possible.
It is unknown if Vidal sexually abused young men; what is known is that the sex he had with them was transactional. He also never defined himself as gay, and never came out. Yet his sexuality, like Spacey’s, was something of an open secret. Both men shared different, but similarly furnished, closets.
The original release was scheduled for 2018. Will Netflix set a new date?
On the stage
British magazine The Fence reported that Spacey met with theater director Sir Trevor Nunn at The Colony Grill, a "relaxed, sophisticated, New York-style grill," as it is promoted, in Mayfair, London.
After celebrating the acquittal with champagne, they reportedly discussed the actor's return to the stage. Specifically, in a regional theater in the United Kingdom.
