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In a livestream conversation with Alec Baldwin on Instagram, Woody Allen said he plans to direct “one or two more” films, but also said that “the thrill is gone” because the theatrical experience has declined.
Without disclosing details about the project, Allen said he will be directing a film that is scheduled to start shooting in Paris in late summer or early fall. His last film was Rifkin’s feastwhich only grossed $2.3 million and reached the US in a limited release earlier this year but made little impact.
MPI Media Group handled this film and stood up for Amazon Studios, which canceled its $80 million distribution deal with Allen in 2019. The filmmaker has found his career options limited in recent years amid the increasing scrutiny of sexual abuse allegations. The book publisher Hachette has also canceled the publication of his memoirs in 2020.
Even before Covid, Allen said, the challenging environment for traditional theatrical releases was beginning to weigh on him. “When I started, you were making a movie and it would go to a movie theater and movie theaters across the country and people would come by the hundreds to see it in big groups on a big screen,” he said. “Now you do a film and you get a few weeks in a theater, maybe six weeks, four weeks, whatever. And then it goes straight to streaming or straight to pay-per-view, and people love to sit at home with their big screens and watch it on their TVs.” As a result, he continued, “I don’t mind have fun.”
As Covid combined with the growing industry backlash to marginalize Allen in recent years, he said he’s liked the new normal. Baldwin, who himself was going through a period of professional limbo and public scrutiny for his role in the deadly shooting on the set of Rust, last interviewed Allen for his radio show and podcast in 2020. Here’s the thing. During the conversation, he called Allen’s films “a warm bath” that he often turns to to recover from “the doldrums.”
For five decades, from the 1960s through the 2010s, Allen averaged about one film a year and wrote and directed more than 50 feature films.
Allen said of his new daily routine: “I don’t have to be cold in the winter or hot in the summer or get up at 5 a.m. and make decisions all day. I’m at home and all I can do is train, practice the clarinet and write. I was at home and wrote a lot. I have written many plays. … I was like, ‘What if I didn’t do a movie? It’s a nice way to live.” And I was like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll do one or two more.’”
The half hour chat included no direct discussion of the rust Shooting or the allegations against Allen. which reappeared in the HBO documentary series Allen vs. Farrow in 2021. The series featured interviews with family members, friends, and investigators, including Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, who alleges Allen sexually assaulted her at a Connecticut summer home in 1992. No criminal charges were ever filed, but the case gained renewed publicity during the #MeToo era, with a number of industry insiders backing down from Allen.
Allen said he wouldn’t write screenplays for others to direct – something he’s only done a few times before. Instead, he would rather write novels. He said he wrote two plays during the pandemic, although he didn’t express much optimism about having them produced on Broadway.
“I have the same whining complaint about the theater” as I have about the state of the film business, Allen said. “When I was younger you would go to the Theater District and it would be lit up and there was one interesting play after another and it was just fun to go there. There was a tremendous variety.” More recently, he said, the Broadway Theater District has become “a terrible shopping mall” because of skyrocketing production costs and “all the shows are musical revivals and must-have-a-star shows.” As a result, “there is no more Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams or William Inge or Edward Albee.”
Baldwin said the theater world “mirrors the movie business,” with its focus on tentpoles and A-list talent. However, he took the half-full view of the landscape. “The good news is,” he said of revivals like the music man with Hugh Jackman: “A lot of people go to work, a lot of people get jobs. … I’m always pro these shows economically because a lot of people get hired.”
