The World’s Most Hated Director Wants To Make A Movie In France
So many just want him to go away.
Dear cancel culture: if you exist, you’ve been sleepy. Paul Haggis is being released from house arrest in Italy, Ezra Miller is apparently as difficult to catch up with as his DCEU character, and Mel Gibson seems as busy as ever these days. And now here comes Woody Allen. That’s right, the four-time Oscar winner who looked the whole world dead in the face as if to say, “wait… marrying your child is weird?” now wants to make what will be his fiftieth feature. But, possibly aware that he’s no one’s favorite guy these days, he’s taking the production across the pond to France.
Woody Allen was speaking the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche (via Variety) to promote Rifkin’s Festival, when he said he was hoping to “relocate to Paris” in order to film his next feature. No title has been revealed, but Allen said it will reportedly be a French-language film with talent recruited from Paris. He said French actors have already been approached about the film.
The disgraced filmmaker compared his upcoming film to 2005’s Match Point; a psychological thriller which starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, and Brian Cox among others. Woody Allen said the French film would be “in the same vein,” as the 2005 feature, calling it “a sort of poisonous romantic thriller.”
While the director claimed to have secured financing in the States, Variety says their sources tell them no financing is yet in place. Assuming someone is fronting the bills for Woody Allen’s next film, they clearly won’t be doing it with the expectation of a big return on their investment. The budget is reportedly in the range of $10 million, while so far Allen’s last feature — 2020’s Rifkin’s Festival — has so far amassed a worldwide gross of $2.3 million.
The good news for anyone hoping Woody Allen will eventually go away for good is that apparently the untitled French film may very well be his final feature. When another controversial figure, Alec Baldwin, interviewed Allen on his Instagram page recently (via Variety), the director said “the thrill is gone.” The Annie Hall writer/director lamented both the smaller crowds in theaters and the shorter theatrical windows before movies go to streaming and/or video on demand. “I don’t know how I feel about making movies,” Allen said. “I’m going to make another one and I’ll see how it feels.
There was a time when just about every actor asked, “who’s the one director you’d kill to work with,” would answer “Woody Allen.” That began to change in the nineties when it was discovered that Allen was sleeping with Soon-Yi Previn, Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, while he was in a relationship with Farrow. When Allen and Previn married five years later, it did nothing to help the director’s image. However, he continued to be able to recruit big names like Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Emma Stone, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and more. Things changed in a big way when, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Mia Farrow’s daughter Dylan accused Allen of sexually assaulting her when she was 7 year sold. Allen’s name has become such a hot potato that some actors, including Kate Winslet, have apologized for ever working with him at all.
