Film starring Kevin Spacey to be released in August

Kevin Spacey was erased from All the Money in the World and booted from House of Cards, but a movie starring the disgraced actor is going forward with a summer release.

Vertical Entertainment announced that it will release Billionaire Boys Club on video-on-demand on July 17 and in theatres August 17. The film is about young wealthy men in Los Angeles who run a Ponzi scheme. It stars Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton and Spacey.

Billionaire Boys Club was shot in 2015, before Spacey was accused last autumn of sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour by numerous people.

"We don't condone sexual harassment on any level and we fully support victims of it," the film distributor said in a statement. "At the same time, this is neither an easy nor insensitive decision to release this film in theatres, but we believe in giving the cast, as well as hundreds of crew members who worked hard on the film, the chance to see their final product reach audiences."

Other companies have elected to remove Spacey entirely from their productions.

After shooting was completed but before the film was released, Sony Pictures and director Ridley Scott chose to reshoot large parts of All the Money in the World with Christopher Plummer in Spacey's role. House of Cards producer Media Rights Capital, opted to move forward with a sixth and final season of House of Cards, but without Spacey. Netflix scrapped a Gore Vidal biopic starring Spacey.

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Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.