It’s an understatement, but the last few months haven’t been kind to Woody Allen and my, how time flies. In October, the director’s latest film, “Wonder Wheel,” was met with middling reviews and some mild-to-resentful side eye. Fast forward three months and the political and social #TimesUp and #MeToo groundswell movement has rendered the filmmaker persona non grata and association with the filmmaker is akin to being diagnosed with cancer. It’s as if the Dylan Farrow-published Los Angeles Times op-ed, “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?,” written in early December, caught up with Allen immediately. Sexual assault allegations that Dylan Farrow and her mother Mia Farrow have made for decades are finally being heard and press for Allen couldn’t be any worse than it is right now. The ramifications are still echoing outwards.
READ MORE: Woody Allen Responds To Dylan Farrow’s Sexual Assault Allegation
Actors, more than happy to sign up to work with Allen last year, are abandoning him left and right (David Krumholtz, Mira Sorvino, Rachel Brosnahan, and Colin Firth) and actors that have worked with him in the past are dissociating or renouncing him (Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig, Rebecca Hall) and many, if not all, the players of his major film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” have donated their salaries to charity hoping to not profit from a film they had signed up to get paid from back when the allegations weren’t a problem. Allen even suffered the ignominy of having For Your Consideration “Wonder Wheel” Academy Award screeners sent out without his name appearing once on the packaging.
It’s left many to speculate what will happen to Woody Allen’s career. Is the 82-year-old done for? Will he have trouble getting films made going forward? That’s an incredibly germane question and all, and perhaps an entirely different conversation, but maybe the eyes should be on the prize of his next film, because “A Rainy Day In New York,” starring Timothée Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning and many more could be in trouble.
The backstory that doesn’t help the optics here: Former Amazon Studios chief Roy Price, who greenlit the film in the first place and wooed Allen away from his regular home at Sony Pictures Classics, resigned in October after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a key producer.
So, Amazon essentially has a ticking time bomb of additional bad press waiting in the wings with the release of “A Rainy Day In New York.” But steps are apparently already being taken. A new Vulture report says, according to “several insiders with knowledge of the studio/streaming service’s business operations,” the movie rollout will be negatively affected “if not outright cancelled by the fast-spreading groundswell of anti-Allen sentiment.”
This doesn’t seem like much of a surprise frankly, releasing ‘Rainy Day’ in this climate feels like career suicide for Amazon, so don’t be surprised if the studio decides to quietly skip a theatrical release and even more inaudibly put the film out on Amazon prime with little to no promotion (which is what the article also posits).
“If I’m handling this internally, I say, ‘Let’s hold our water. Let’s not date this thing yet. Let’s see if this thing blows over. America forgets everything anyway,’” one Academy member and insider said, giving his two cents to Vulture. “Woody would not have signed a contract with Amazon that did not guarantee theatrical distribution. But they could say, ‘Woody, we have a problem. We need to renegotiate.’” It’s true, and Allen, at this point, might easily agree to letting this one lay on Amazon Prime and cut his losses.
Many critics on Film Twitter tend to assume Allen’s career is over, that working with him is akin to drinking poison and no actor or studio will touch his films. But personally, I don’t think so. International producers love the guy and many of them already persuaded him to leave New York and helped fund European movies like “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “To Rome with Love,” and “Midnight in Paris.” Sure, A-list talent won’t line up to work on those films, but that’s not to say European stars or C-list American stars with nothing to lose won’t jump at the opportunity (Hell, even Alec Baldwin is still supporting the guy).
One anonymous Hollywood insider told Vulture, “My very jaded perspective is that his fans are older and those who go see his films are very set in their ways. This is going to be a horrible analogy but it’s like the Alabama voters who turned out for Roy Moore. Woody will always have his fans no matter what.” I can’t say I disagree. [Vulture]