Genre: Drama
Premise: The true story of the kidnapping of the richest man in the world’s grandson, and the subsequent refusal by John Paul Getty to pay the ransom.
About: If you got the feeling after Alien Covenant that Ridley Scott wasn’t interested in making an Alien movie, today’s project may be the reason why, as this film is set up to win Scott some Oscars. The “All The Money in the World” package just sold at Cannes, and will star Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Spacey, and Michelle Williams. The script is written by long-time scribe David Scarpa, whose most recent credit is The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) and whose script for this film landed on the upper half of the 2015 Black List.
Writer: David Scarpa
Details: 120 pages
The most I knew about J. Paul Getty before today was that he built a museum in Los Angeles that’s a bitch to get up to.
So it was fun to learn all about the Citizen Kane’esque figure. Getty was the man who figured out how to get oil out of the Saudi Arabian desert. He negotiated rights to the land the oil was on, built the super tankers that would transport the oil to other countries, and built gas stations wherever those tankers would sail to.
You can imagine how much money someone would make owning the rights to oil the second it came out of the ground to the second it entered your gas tank.
Like most obscenely rich people, Getty was a quirky dude. He didn’t trust anybody, as he believed they were all after his money. And he was a notorious penny-pincher, going so far as to clean his own clothes at hotels, refusing to pay the dollar the hotel charged to do it.
J Paul Getty had lots of children (the man had 5 wives) so he didn’t have time to be close to all of them. One of his first sons, Paul, was discarded like a cheap sweatshirt, and grew up poor.
When Paul’s wife, Gail, got sick of living day to day, she demanded Paul get in touch with his father and ask for money. When Paul refused, Gail wrote the letter herself. Surprisingly, Getty welcomed them in with open arms, and the family went from Baltic Avenue to Park Place.
But the money went to Paul’s head, destroying his marriage with Gail, leaving Gail alone with their children, the oldest of whom was (also named) Paul. Gail settled down in Rome with the kids. Then one night, when teenage Paul was out partying, a group of men grabbed him off the street and kidnapped him.
They would later call Gail with what, they believed, was a bargain asking price. 17 million. The world went running to Getty. What was he going to do?? Getty shocked the media by stating simply, “I’m not paying it.” Instead, he hired a fixer, Fletcher Chace, to look into the kidnapping, then went back to operating his business.
Meanwhile, Gail was in a no-win situation. The kidnappers assumed she was rich, yet she barely had enough money for her own living expenses. When a police investigation uncovered information that Paul might have faked his kidnapping to con money out of his grandfather, everyone went their separate ways, assuming Paul would eventually come back home.
This led to Paul being stuck in his kidnapper’s lair for months, his mother the only one who believed he was in any danger. But her reach was so limited, that there was nothing she could do but wait. Wait to find out if her son would come home dead or alive.
All The Money In the World (a reference to Gail saying she couldn’t pay the ransom and the kidnapper replying, “Get it from your father-in-law. He has all the money in the world.”) starts out strong, with a clever first act that begins with the kidnapping.
This is followed by a flashback that explains who J. Paul Getty is, and how his estranged son, Paul, and Paul’s wife, Gail, came to work for him, which then led to their divorce, which then led to Gail raising the children on her own.
This section solidified the relationship between Gail and Paul, which was necessary since she’s the only person in the story who cares about his return.
However, the script stalls once Getty refuses to pay his son’s ransom since there’s nowhere left for the story to go. Nobody’s pursuing anything anymore. As a result, the majority of the second act amounts to people waiting around.
The only characters with active goals are the kidnappers. Their desire to get their money is the only thing left pushing the story along. And yet their scenes lack any notable drama, since they remain cordial with Paul all the way up to the final act.
The fixer, Chace, has the potential to be a cool character, but since Getty cuts his balls off, he’s relegated to being an emotional support system for Gail.
All of this leaves the story in a perpetual state of waiting. And, to be frank, it was difficult to care. We’re essentially watching a kidnap story where no one wants to save the victim. You know what it reminded me of? That weird Angelina Jolie movie, The Changeling? You know the one where you weren’t sure what you were supposed to be feeling or what was really going on? This story leaves you with that same type of feeling.
True life may be stranger than fiction, but it’s also less dramatic. Building a story around a kidnapping where no one goes after the victim is, literally, the most undramatic thing you can do.
The lone standout character in the script is Getty himself. And you can smell Spacey chomping at the bit to play a penny-pinching billionaire. He’s also one of the most dialogue-friendly characters you can write.
For newbies out there, the “professor” character is a great device to inject awesome dialogue into your story. “Professor” characters are characters who are always using history to make a point. These little stories not only add an element of suspense to each interaction, but a splash of fun as well.
For example, late in the script, Saudi Arabia ups the price of oil tenfold, making Getty ten times richer than he already was. Chace comes to him and says, surely you’ll pay the ransom now. Instead of saying, “I don’t have the money to spare at the moment,” Getty points out that he’s over-leveraged, offering, “Do you know how Jesse Livermore died? He was the greatest speculator in stocks ever to work on Wall Street. He blew his brains out in a coat check room after he lost every penny he had. That’s how fast a man’s fortune can turn. Don’t you see? I’ve never been more vulnerable financially than I am right now.”
So add a professor character if you want some cool dialogue.
Unfortunately, none of the other characters were as interesting as Getty. I couldn’t figure Chace out. He didn’t seem to be as good at his job as was advertised. Gail did look for ways to save her son, but you always felt like she could be doing more.
Then there was Paul. Clearly, Paul was a mess in real life. He did drugs. He partied all night. He hung out with sketchy people. I suspect this is the real reason nobody looked into Paul’s kidnapping. Because he was a deadbeat loser who brought it upon himself. But Paul’s sketchy lifestyle is never revealed to us, I suspect because, if it was, you wouldn’t have a movie. Since the concept is predicated on us sympathizing with Paul, we must erase all traces of Paul being a bad person. It all felt a bit manipulative.
There’s a movie in here somewhere. But I couldn’t find it in this draft.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Sandwich your boring parts. Any time you have a section filled with exposition or backstory, a smart move is to sandwich that section. For example, the first act here is backstory on the Gettys. Instead of immediately jumping into that section, Scarpa wisely SANDWICHES it between the kidnapping. We see the kidnapping right away, we then get the full backstory, then afterwards, we’re right back to the kidnapping.
