Woody Allen may make “one or two more films” before ending his directing career for good

Director Woody Allen participated in a conversation with embattled actor Alec Baldwin that was live-streamed on Instagram yesterday. The overall mood of these two engaging in an interview of sorts was met with a fair degree of criticism online. Alec Baldwin is still dealing with the fallout from the fatal Rust movie shooting and Woody Allen remains a polarizing figure in the #MeToo movement due to past allegations of sexual abuse. A discussion between the two was bound to make headlines of some sort but one big tidbit that came out of the unexpected interview was that Woody Allen revealed that he may make “one or two more films” before ending his directing career for good.

Allen didn’t reveal details about his upcoming projects but he said he will direct a film that will shoot in Paris in the late summer or early fall. Why is Allen wrapping up his tenure behind the camera? He told Alex Baldwin that “the thrill is gone” in regards to filmmaking because of the gradual decline of the theatrical experience. Here is what he had to say:

“When I started, you’d do a film and it would go into a movie house and movie houses all over the country, and people would come by the hundreds to watch it in big groups on a big screen. Now, you do a movie and you get a couple of weeks in a movie house, maybe six weeks, four weeks, whatever. And then it goes right to streaming or right to pay-per-view, and people love sitting home with their big screens and watching it on their television sets. It’s not as enjoyable to me.”

You can check out the whole interview below:

Allen’s most recent film was Rifkin’s Festival, barely got distribution in the U.S. Amazon Studio yanked its $80 million distribution deal with Allen back in 2019 so MPI Media Group had to step in and handle the release. Even though Allen seems to be setting up his directing career to end on his own terms, he has found his options shrinking in recent years due to revived scrutiny around past allegations of sexual abuse. This was detailed in the HBO documentary series Allen v. Farrow in 2021 which featured interviews with family members, friends, investigators, and Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. She still maintains that the director sexually assaulted her in 1992 but no criminal charges were ever filed and he has always denied the allegations. Many stars have resisted working with him in the wake of this renewed interest while book publisher Hachette canceled publication on his planned memoir in 2020. The industry has essentially turned its back on Allen although people like Baldwin, who is dealing with his own professional and personal scrutiny, appear to be allies. He last interviewed the director for the “Here’s The Thing” podcast in 2020 and called Allen’s films “a warm bath” he turns to as a respite from “the doldrums.”

Allen also revealed that he would not write screenplays for other others to direct. He has only engaged in this a couple of times before but he says he would prefer to write novels moving forward. Allen wrote two plays during the pandemic but he doesn’t seem too optimistic about them reaching the Broadway stage. He thinks that Broadway theater has become a “dreadful mall” and that “all the shows are musical revivals and shows where you’ve got to get a star.”

“I have the same whining complaint about the theater. When I was younger, you’d go to the theater district and it would be lit up and it would have one interesting play after the other, and it was just fun to go. There was a tremendous amount of variety.”

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