Replacing an actor in a movie that’s already been completed is no easy task. Ridley Scott is complicating things even more by not delaying the release date of All the Money in the World, which is just weeks away. In wake of the allegations against Kevin SpaceyChristopher Plummer will replace Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty, the tyrannical Getty patriarch who refused to pay his grandson’s ransom. Plummer, who will be reshooting all of Spacey’s scenes, has finally responded to the recasting news, and now we’ve learned that those reshoots will apparently cost millions.

According to Variety, marketers estimate that the total cost of reshoots, post-production, and the creation of new marketing materials like recut trailers and theater standees, could exceed $10 million once the rush cost estimates are added in. That’s a huge price tag added to this movie, but an admirable decision from Scott and the film’s financiers, Imperative Entertainment, who’s paying for the additional shoots. The film is expected to be locked by December 15, which Sony believes will be enough time to get awards screeners out to voting members, a tight window that is certainly pushing it. Perhaps all the hype of such an unprecedented change weeks from release will work in the movie’s favor in the end.

Plummer himself has finally addressed the recasting decision, very diplomatically, to Entertainment Tonight. The actor said that it’s more like “starting over again” than replacing an actor:

It isn’t replacing. In a funny way it’s starting all over again because it’s going to be different, naturally. The situation is very sad, because he’s such a talented guy. The whole circumstance is sad. But I’ve got to forget that and go and do it, because it’s a very well written script and Ridley has been very good.

He also added that reshooting and recutting the film in time was going to be “quite a push.” Understatement of the year? Maybe.

All the Money in the World will, somehow, open in theaters December 22.

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