Woody Allen will return to film-making with backing from Spanish producers and is likely to make his next film in Spain.
Variety magazine reports that Spanish production outfit Mediapro has confirmed it has signed a development deal with Allen. Mediapro previously worked with Allen on the Spain-set romcom Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which starred Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and Midnight in Paris, Allen’s highest grossing film to date.
No details of any project have been released, but Spanish newspaper El País reports that Allen’s producers have been scouting locations in the Basque city of San Sebastián, and are due to meet local officials.
The reports arrive two weeks after Allen launched legal action against Amazon, claiming the tech giant had broken a four-film deal it had signed in 2017. After making a TV series with Allen and the feature film Wonder Wheel, Amazon have not released A Rainy Day in New York, the first in the projected four-film agreement. Jennifer Salke, CEO of Amazon Studios, subsequently said in an interview with the New York Times: “We don’t have any plans to release any Woody Allen movies.”
A Rainy Day in New York, which stars Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning and Jude Law, became engulfed in controversy after an article by Allen’s adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow titled “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?” appeared in the LA Times in December 2017. A number of Allen collaborators, including Chalamet, Rebecca Hall, Greta Gerwig and Colin Firth publicly disassociated themselves from the director. Chalamet donated his salary to charity, saying: “I don’t want to profit from my work on the film.”
Allen has been defended by others, including Bardem, who said in 2018: “I don’t agree with the public lynching that he’s been receiving, and if Woody Allen called me to work with him again I’d be there tomorrow morning. He’s a genius.”
In a statement to the New York Times, Mediapro said: “We have a 10-year relationship with Mr Allen and, like all projects we produce, we judge the creator by its work.”
