Kevin Spacey fired from House of Cards; see statement

Is Kevin Spacey going to be fired from House of Cards? We know that you’ve been asking that question for much of the week.

Today, it is official. Netflix is removing the actor / executive producer from his duties working on the show following five seasons and the first couple of episodes of season 6. Here is their statement, which references their work with studio Media Rights Capital on the show:

Netflix will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the show​. ​We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film Gore, which was in post-production, starring and produced by Kevin Spacey.

In getting this statement out now Netflix makes it so that the next week of news will not be all about this show and Spacey, something that they clearly want to move on from. While they cannot be held accountable at all over what happened with Anthony Rapp, who accused Kevin of unspeakable behavior decades ago late last month, they have faced some criticism not disclosing right away an investigation into Spacey’s behavior back during the very first season of the show.

What comes next

We’ve reported already that House of Cards is taking a hiatus for the next two weeks in order to properly assess the show’s future. There’s a good chance that they will write out Frank Underwood and continue the show to not penalize the fans or the other cast and crew members interested in telling the rest of the story.

Beyond just that, there is talk of a possible spin-off and there are some ideas in development. Whether or not anything comes out of that depends in part on the idea, but our main concern is just that at this point, it may be hard to get viewers on board because much of House of Cards is now tied in one way or another to Spacey. He was such a huge part of the show — he even broke the fourth wall as Frank on it on a number of occasions.

What do you think about Netflix making this move right now? Share in the comments section below.