Filmmaker Woody Allen took part in a brief interview with actor Alec Baldwin on Tuesday morning.
The interview, which the “30 Rock” actor livestreamed on Instagram, avoided the sexual assault allegations that tarnished his reputation. The 2021 HBO series, “Allen v. Farrow” was not mentioned at all. Instead, Baldwin, who is no stranger to controversy, focused on Allen’s career and his upcoming films.
Scroll to the bottom to watch the full 55-minute interview!
Woody Allen Reveals He Plans To Make More Movies
According to Deadline, from the 1960s through the 2010s, Allen averaged about a film a year, writing and directing more than fifty projects. Allen told Baldwin that he plans to make “one or two” more movies in the coming years, but noted that the “thrill is gone” due to an increase in streaming and a decline in theater attendance.
Allen revealed that his next film will shoot in Paris either in the late summer or early fall. His last film, “Rifkin’s Festival,” only grossed $2.3 million after it had a limited release in the United States. The movie was released by MPI Media Group after Amazon Studios pulled its $80 million distribution deal in 2019.
Although many have blamed poor box office numbers on the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Allen felt that theaters were already beginning to decline even before the pandemic.
“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,” he recalled. “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,” he added.
Woody Allen Reveals That He’s Still ‘Writing A Lot’
Now that Woody Allen is taking a step back from the spotlight, he revealed that he has a lot more time to keep writing.
“I don’t have to be cold in the winter or hot in the summer or up at 5 o’clock in the morning, making decisions all day long. I’m home and there’s nothing I can do but exercise, practice the clarinet and write. I was home writing a lot. I wrote a lot of plays. … I thought to myself, ‘What if I didn’t make film? This is a nice way to live.’ And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll make one or two more.’”
Although he has written screenplays for others to direct a few times before, he revealed that will not be the case with his most recent writing projects. Instead, he would prefer to write his own novels for release. He originally had a deal with book publisher Hachette to publish his memoir in 2020, but it was canceled due to the sexual assault allegations against him.
Woody Allen admitted to writing a lot of plays, but he has “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,” he recalled. “There was a tremendous amount of variety.”
Now, however, Allen is unhappy with the way things have changed. He likened the Broadway theater district in New York City to “a dreadful mall,” adding, “all the shows are musical revivals and shows where you’ve got to get a star” due to the rising costs of production.
Due to this, Allen complained that “there’s no more Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams or William Inge or Edward Albee.”
Although he said that Broadway theater performances are “mirroring the movie business,” Allen did look on the bright side for revivals, like “The Music Man” starring Hugh Jackman.
“The good news is a lot of people go to work, a lot of people get jobs,” he said. “I’m always in favor of these shows economically because a lot of people get employed.”
The full hour-long interview is available to watch on Alec Baldwin’s Instagram page and can be viewed in the video below.
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