Mark Wahlberg 'refused to approve Christopher Plummer' unless he was paid $1m

Mark Wahlberg refused to approve the casting of Christopher Plummer in All The Money In The World unless he was paid more than $1 million for the movie’s reshoots, according to reports.

Plummer was drafted in at the last minute to reshoot the part of oil magnate J. Paul Getty, originally played by Kevin Spacey, who was cut from the movie by director Ridley Scott following allegations of sexual harassment.

But an anonymous source on the movie told USA Today that Wahlberg invoked the ‘co-star approval’ part of his contract in order to net himself a huge payment to take part in the reshoots.

“What he said was, ‘I will not approve Christopher Plummer unless you pay me.’ And that’s how he (expletive) them,” said a source.

It’s claimed that Wahlberg’s lawyer formally vetoed Plummer in a letter to the film’s financiers, unless he received the money.

The news comes after uproar over news that Wahlberg’s co-star Michelle Williams worked for her $80 per diem on the reshoots, while he made over 1000 times what she did.

The situation was initially targeted as a case of Hollywood sexism, with the likes of Jessica Chastain and Judd Apatow wading in on the row.

But it appears that it was perhaps more a case of hard bargaining on the part of Wahlberg’s agents.

It’s said that while Williams’ contract included the eventuality of reshoots, Wahlberg’s did not, and he leveraged another huge sum of money for heading back to re-shoot the scenes he did with Spacey opposite Plummer instead.

Wahlberg’s reps have not commented on the matter.

Speaking about the situation, Ridley Scott notably didn’t mention Wahlberg when he spoke of the cast’s willingness to re-shoot large parts of the movie following Spacey being cut.

“No, I wouldn’t get paid, I refused to get paid,” Scott said. “No, they all came in free. Christopher had to get paid. But Michelle, no. Me, no.”

Williams added: “I said I’d be wherever they needed me, whenever they needed me. And they could have my salary, they could have my holiday, whatever they wanted. Because I appreciated so much that they were making this massive effort.”

Read more
Frances McDormand censored during Globes speech
All the Golden Globes winners
Natalie Portman calls out sexist Globes category