The names Woody Allen and Alec Baldwin carry a lot of extra baggage in 2022 than they did 20 years ago. Allen is still mired by the allegations of sexual abuse that he’s been accused of for decades. Baldwin has experienced his fair share of controversies, as well, with his most recent one being the result of an on-set accident that ended with the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. So, you had to expect that all eyes would be on Baldwin’s Instagram account today as he interviewed Woody Allen for nearly an hour.
Well, if you tuned in hoping for a deep dive into their own respective controversies, you were greatly disappointed. The bulk of the conversation revolved around Baldwin talking to Allen about his most recent memoir and other writings. Clearly, Baldwin didn’t care to ask anything that might result in controversial headline-grabbing news. However, there was a part in the discussion when Woody Allen shared that he may be ending his filmmaking career soon.
“I’ll probably make at least one more movie. A lot of the thrill is gone,” Allen said (via Variety). “When I used to do a film it’d go into a movie house all across the country. Now you do a movie and you get a couple weeks in a movie house. Maybe six weeks or four weeks and then it goes right to streaming or pay-per-view…It’s not the same…It’s not as enjoyable to me.”
He added, “I don’t get the same fun doing a movie and putting it in a theater. It was a nice feeling to know that 500 people were seeing it once… I don’t know how I feel about making movies. I’m going to make another one and I’ll see how it feels.”
Of course, these comments don’t exist in a vacuum. You can take this at face value and see that Allen says the “thrill” of making films is gone. Of course, you can also see that Allen’s recent films have been a bit radioactive in the eyes of distributors in the US, who have largely stayed away from releasing them stateside. And his once very lucrative deal with Amazon Studios went out of the window after the sexual abuse allegations were once again brought to the public eye. So, while Allen might be honestly sick of making films, you can’t help but add that it’s not easy for him to find willing partners to help finance and distribute his films in the way he used to enjoy.
That said, he’s still non-committal about the idea of walking away. But at the age of 86, you would have to assume the end of his career would be coming sooner rather than later anyway.
You can watch the entire conversation below: