After a rough 2018, and a major lawsuit in early 2019, the last year and change has not been kind to Woody Allen. The legendary filmmaker is coming off one of the worst years of his decades-long career, as his past caught up with him yet again, with sexual abuse allegations making headlines once more. Since then, he’s lost his deal with Amazon (thus the lawsuit) and is having issues finding funding for his next film (if he ever gets to make it). And topping it all off is a new report that says Allen is even struggling to find anyone to publish his memoir.
For those not up to date on the whole Woody Allen situation, his past allegations of sexual abuse against a minor resurfaced over the last year and a half when Ronan Farrow garnered publicity after being a pivotal journalist in the reporting around Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement. Farrow, of course, has close, personal ties to Allen and used his platform to publicly remind folks about the filmmaker’s alleged transgressions from decades previous.
During that time, Allen had been looking to release his latest film, in a partnership with Amazon, titled “A Rainy Day in New York.” However, when the allegations resurfaced, and the public perception of Allen once again soured, Amazon refused to release the film, placing it in a state of purgatory. This has led to a massive lawsuit, which will likely take up most of 2019.
That leads us to a new report from the New York Times, which claims that Allen has been shopping around a new memoir to some of the major publishers. And, similarly to how Amazon has treated the filmmaker, those publishers have not been interested.
The report says:
“Executives at multiple publishing houses said that an agent representing Allen approached their companies about the memoir late last year, but that they made no offers, largely because of the negative publicity that working with Allen may have generated. Some publishers declined to even read the material, which apparently consisted of a full manuscript.”
The word being thrown around is apparently “toxic,” to describe the potential relationship between Allen and a publisher, due to his allegations and the current political climate.
So, it would appear that for the time being, the filmmaker is not only blacklisted by the film industry, but other industries, as well.