While speaking to the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche while promoting the French release of Rifkin's Festival, Woody Allen discussed plans for his next film. The director, who lives in New York, stated that he plans on moving to Paris in September to film his 50th feature, a French-language thriller.
“I kept a wonderful souvenir of the filming of ‘Midnight in Paris’ in 2010. I love this city very much and I’ve visited often, discovering magical places every time."
Allen also told the newspaper that this may be his final feature, something he disclosed to Alec Baldwin during a recent Instagram live appearance. Baldwin and Allen worked together on Alice,To Rome With Love, and Blue Jasmine.
“I don’t get the same fun doing a movie and putting it in a theater. It was a nice feeling to know that 500 people were seeing it once… I don’t know how I feel about making movies. I’m going to make another one and I’ll see how it feels.”
While Allen mentioned that he was able to locate financing for the film in the US, a source with knowledge of the project said that financing was not yet confirmed. The film will feature a French cast and the director said it would be “in the same vein as Match Point, a sort of poisonous romantic thriller.”
The upcoming film's budget is in the $10 million range.
Woody Allen's Decline
Rifkin's Festival, Allen's 2020 film, grossed just $2.3 million in the few territories where it was distributed. It is being released in French theaters by Apollo Films. In the US, MPI Media Group gave it a limited release earlier this year, following Amazon Studio's step back from an $80 million distribution deal with the director after sexual abuse allegations resurfaced when Dylan Farrow, who was co-adopted by Woody Allen, wrote an op-ed that appeared in The New York Times in 2017. Allen filed a lawsuit against Amazon Studios for breach of contract, and the two settled, and he has continued to deny Farrow's allegations.
Throughout recent years, Allen's possibility of work has narrowed, as actors (including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Hall and Mira Sorvino) and studios have refused to work with him.
Allen has success in his long career, winning multiple awards for his work on Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Midnight in Paris, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Love and Death, among others.