I haven't spoken about Woody Allen for quite some time now. You know by now how I feel about the way the venerable writer-director has been treated on social media. All but shunned, with his future as a filmmaker now being questioned. The bad press he has gotten has resulted in his latest film, the Amazon-produced “A Rainy Day in New York,” being stuck in post-production limbo with no release date in sight.
It saddened me to read today's Page Six article by Richard Johnson which stated that, according to numerous sources, Allen is currently not working on anything and is taking a break from directing. I guess the allegation by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow have really damaged his stand in the industry and it is all but impossible for him to raise funds for his next project in Hollywood.
“Woody loves working. He never takes a vacation. But he will be taking time off this year until he can find a backer,” said one source. “Woody always got great actors. Stars would work for scale because it gave them prestige, but with the #MeToo movement, he’s toxic,” one Hollywood producer told me.
Timothée Chalamet, Griffin Newman and Rebecca Hall, who all star in “A Rainy Day in New York,” decided to donate their salary on the film to various charities for victims of sexual abuse. I have an easy solution, how about he makes the move to France? They love him there and would give him the cash to do whatever he desires. Allen is also an avid Francophile.
The 82-year-old director has been releasing a new movie every year since 1982. That's 36 straight years with a movie crediting him as director. The last break for Allen was when he took a year off in between 1980's "Stardust Memories" and 1982's "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy." He was/id the hardest working man in show-business. "A Rainy Day in New York" was supposed to continue that streak this year but sources say the film won't be released this year.
Allen has a three-film deal with Amazon Studios, Page Six' Johnson does hint that the bigwigs over at Amazon might offer Allen a handsome fee to just go away and annex his contract.
Moses Farrow, the adopted son of Allen and Mia Farrow, has always shot down the claim that his sister Dylan was molested by Allen back in August 1992. In fact, he's accused his mother Mia of being a manipulative control freak when he and his siblings were just children. Moses doubled-down on Mia a few months back in an op-ed entitled “A Son Speaks Out.” In it, the most shocking claim, unsurprising to me, was that his mother abused he and his siblings.
Of note:
If you are the kind of person that is open-minded and would rather inform his or herself rather than be lazy and just trust fake news, then, please, by all means, read Robert Weide's excellent dissections of Allen vs Farrow which were posted on 12.13.17, 5.30.16, and, most recently, 1.14.18.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.