Netflix Took a Tax Write-Off to Bury Kevin Spacey's Final Film
Netflix has a Kevin Spacey movie locked in a vault — and they've made it pretty clear they don't plan on ever letting it out.
The film in question is a biopic of author and political provocateur Gore Vidal, completed before the 2017 sexual misconduct allegations that made Spacey radioactive in Hollywood. Netflix cut ties with him immediately after the accusations surfaced, and the film, titled simply Gore, was shelved. That was seven years ago. It's still shelved.
And now we know why: according to IndieWire, Netflix took a tax write-off on the film — which, in Hollywood-speak, means it's dead. Buried. Unreleaseable. Not for sale. They won't stream it, and they won't let anyone else stream it either.
Producer Andy Paterson has been trying to pry it loose for years.
"They have said that they do not intend ever to release the Picture or sell it to a third party," he said, adding that he's asked Netflix repeatedly to either show the film or let him find a new home for it.
Paterson isn't thrilled with the situation.
"The audience — including the Netflix subscribers who paid for the film — should be allowed to decide if they want to see it," he said.
He also called out the inconsistency: Netflix still has five seasons of House of Cards and several other Spacey films on the platform, but Gore is somehow off-limits.
The excuse? Netflix says the tax write-off is final. Paterson says that's fixable.
"I repeat the request," he said. "If you won't show the film, allow me to find another way for audiences to see a powerful and entertaining exploration of many of the issues that inform the debate around the intersection of sex, power and creativity."
The movie wasn't some abandoned rough cut either — it was fully finished. Editing, ADR (minus Spacey), even a full orchestral score. There were private screenings in London for the cast and crew. According to editor Camilla Toniolo,
"They liked it very much... They were also not believing that a movie of this caliber would not come out."
To be fair, Netflix's decision made PR sense in 2017. But for the hundreds of people who worked on Gore, it's a brutal outcome: a film they completed, believed in, and now have zero control over — just sitting on a hard drive somewhere in Los Angeles collecting digital dust.
As for Spacey, he was found not liable in the civil lawsuit filed by Anthony Rapp and later acquitted in a UK criminal trial, but let's be real — his Hollywood comeback isn't happening.