Woody Allen has hinted at a potential end to his illustrious directorial career after his latest release struggled to find a distributor within an ‘unappealing and unromantic’ film industry.
The Academy Award filmmaker claims the ‘romance’ of contemporary cinema and an industry he helped define throughout the 1970s and beyond has disappeared, prompting him to consider his own future as a director.
‘All the romance of filmmaking is gone,’ Allen, 88, told AirMail. ‘The whole business has changed, and not in an appealing way. All the romance of filmmaking is gone.’
Allen’s comments came after the director struggled to find a North American distributor for his latest film, Coup de Chance, but the director insists he’s nonplussed about acquiring one.
He added: ‘It doesn’t matter to me whether I get distributed here or not. Once I make it, I don’t follow it any more. Distribution is no longer what it was.’
Woody Allen, 88, opened up on his disenchantment with contemporary cinema distribution, as well as his indifference toward cancel culture, in an interview published Saturday. Pictured in Italy last fall
Citing his groundbreaking 1977 film Annie Hall, Allen claimed it ‘played in cinemas for over a year’ while ‘now distribution is two weeks in a cinema.’
‘Now distribution is two weeks in a cinema … and then that’s it,’ Allen said. ‘I mean, Annie Hall played in movie houses in New York for a little bit over a year. It’d be in one theater for six, seven months, and then somebody would pick it up and it would hang around another few months.’
Allen also spoke about cancel culture in the AirMail interview, following years of waning popularity in the states in the wake of further scrutiny stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by adopted stepdaughter Dylan Farrow in 1992.
Allen, who has denied the allegations, wasn’t charged following a 1993 probe by authorities in Connecticut.
‘Someone asked me about cancel culture, and I said, “If you’re going to be canceled, this is the culture that you want to be canceled from,”‘ said Allen. ‘Because who wants to be part of this culture?’
Allen, whose $68 million contract with Amazon Studios to make four films was canceled during #MeToo movement, has been challenged in finding distributors for his movies in recent years.
Coup de Chance, a dramatic comedy starring Lou de Laâge, Niels Schneider and Anna Laik, marks the 50th feature film Allen has made.
The film was released April 5 in theaters, and is set for release on digital/VOD services April 12 by MPI Media Group after the film’s debut last autumn at the Venice Film Festival, according to a February 12 item from The Hollywood Reporter.
Allen, pictured at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, noted that once he is done making the movie, he doesn’t ‘follow it’ after the fact
Allen, pictured with wife Soon-Yi Previn, 53, at the film festival last autumn, says that ‘this is the culture that you want to be canceled from’
The outlet previously reported that copies of the movie had been circulating via ‘a network of file sharing and secret screenings.’
Allen, speaking with actor Alec Baldwin in June of 2022 on Instagram Live, expounded on why he was disappointed with modern practices.
‘I will probably make one more movie, but a lot of the thrill is gone because it doesn’t have the whole cinema effect,’ he said. ‘When I started, you would do a film and it would go to movie houses all over the country and people would come.
‘Now you do a movie and you get a couple of weeks in a movie house, maybe six weeks or four weeks, and then it goes right to streaming or to pay-per-view.’
He added, ‘People love sitting at home and watching on their big screens … and they have good sound and a clear picture. It’s not the same thing as when I went into the movie business. And so, it’s not as enjoyable to me.’