Kevin Spacey 'cost Netflix $39 million' in wake of dropped projects following sexual misconduct allegations

Netflix has revealed a $39 million (£28 million) loss in the final quarter of 2017 owing to cutting shows they were “unable to move forward with”.

Chief financial officer David Wells didn’t name names, but admitted the charge was “related to the societal reset around sexual harassment”.

The £28 million write-down is thought to be linked to major projects cut in the wake of serious sexual misconduct allegations levelled against actor Kevin Spacey last October, according to Deadline.

The online streaming service halted production of House of Cards to write out Spacey’s lead character, as well as scrapping the release of Gore, in which he portrayed Gore Vidal.

Netflix also dropped a second stand-up show from comedian Louis CK after he admitted to the sexual harassment allegations made against him and decided to “take a step back from his career”.

After the allegations against Spacey were made, the 58-year-old was completely cut from Ridley Scott’s All The Money In The World.

Director Scott made the decision to cut the star and replace him with Christopher Plummer, who was rumoured to have been first choice for the role at the beginning before Scott was “pressured to cast a bigger name”.

In his first interview after the decision, Scott revealed that he hadn’t even spoken to Spacey about the recast nor had the actor reached out to him.

He told Entertainment Weekly: “Someone was like: 'Guess what?' And that's where it began. I sat and thought about it and realised, we cannot. You can't tolerate any kind of behaviour like that. And it will affect the film. We cannot let one person's action affect the good work of all these other people. It's that simple."