Woody Allen’s next film, Coup de Chance, could be his 50th and last movie before he retires, according to the director.
Allen may be considering retiring
Speaking to Variety recently, Allen noted that his upcoming film may be his last, saying that he has to “decide” if he wants to make any more movies. The largest hurdle in doing more movies, according to the director, is coming up with the money to make movies, along with the landscape of how movies are shared.
“I was thinking this is my 50th film and I have to decide if I want to make more films,” said Allen. “There’s two things that I thought about. One is, it’s always such a pain in the neck to raise money for a movie. And do I want to go through it? Making the movie is one thing, but raising the money for it, you know, is tedious and not glamorous. And now if somebody steps out of the shadows and says, ‘I’ll give you money to make your movie,’ that would be an influential factor in making another movie. And the other thing is where movies have gone. I don’t like the idea – and I don’t know of any director that does — of making a movie and after two weeks it’s on television or streaming.”
Allen went on to say that this was not “a high cultural point,” and lamented the fact that not many European films are playing in the United States.
“This is not a high cultural point. There were many wonderful films made in the past, and you don’t see many wonderful films made now. When I wanted to go to the movies, there used to be three or four films I was dying to see. Every week there would be a film from Truffaut and Fellini and Ingmar Bergman and Kurosawa. Now, very few European films are playing in the United States to begin with. I think we’re not in a wonderful place culturally, certainly not in cinema.”
Allen considers cancel culture “so silly”
Allen also briefly touched on the topic of “cancel culture,” and was asked specifically about claims from his daughter Dylan Farrow, who alleged that Allen sexually abused her as a child in the 2021 docuseries Allen v. Farrow. Allen said that he still maintains his innocence and hasn’t had any contact with his daughter nor his son, Ronan Farrow, although he is “always willing to.”
When it comes to getting “canceled,” Allen said that he doesn’t exactly know what it means, and said that he finds it all “so silly.”
“I feel if you’re going to be canceled, this is the culture to be canceled by. I just find that all so silly. I don’t think about it. I don’t know what it means to be canceled. I know that over the years everything has been the same for me. I make my movies. What has changed is the presentation of the films. You know, I work and it’s the same routine for me. I write the script, raise the money, make the film, shoot it, edit it, it comes out. The difference is not is not [sic] from cancel culture. The difference is the way they present the films. It’s that that’s the big change.”
