Woody Allen opened up on his disenchantment with contemporary cinema distribution, as well as his indifference toward cancel culture, in a new interview.
‘All the romance of filmmaking is gone,’ the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, 88, told the outlet AirMail Saturday.
The director, whose latest release, Coup de Chance, has faced issues with North American distribution, told the outlet that he doesn’t care if he gets domestic distribution deals for his films, following years of image issues amid the #MeToo movement.
‘It doesn’t matter to me whether I get distributed here or not,’ Allen told the outlet. ‘Distribution is no longer what it was.’
The director of movies such as Blue Jasmine, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters, compared the theatrical run his Oscar-winning 1977 comedy Annie Hall had, to movies that premiere in theaters in modern times.
‘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 said of his industry: ‘The whole business has changed, and not in an appealing way.’
The director noted that once he is done making the movie, he doesn’t ‘follow it’ after the fact.
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.
Coup de Chance 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.
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.’