Woody Allen Could Soon Be Calling His Directing Career a Wrap

Woody Allen’s Directing Career May Soon Be Over

Woody Allen, one of film history’s most influential filmmakers, has told Alec Baldwin his next movie could be his last.

Legendary movie actor/writer/director, Woody Allen, recently interviewed with actor Alec Baldwin for an Instagram video. Allen told Baldwin (who Allen directed in three movies) that his next picture (set to film in Paris) could mark his exit from his movie-making career. The Oscar-winning Allen has decided that the new system of film releasing is not what he has been accustomed to throughout the years. In the past, he’d direct movies like Midnight in Paris or Blue Jasmine which would be playing on the art house circuits, gather word of mouth and then be released wide. They’d even go on to win Academy Awards occasionally such as in the case of the two aforementioned films.

Since the pandemic, certain movies have been going straight to streaming but Allen’s successful directing career was nearing its end even before the pandemic hit when his movie, Wonder Wheel, bombed at the box-office. That film’s financial failure was a sign that Allen films may have seen better days. Kate Winslet, a decent box-office draw, and Justin Timberlake appeared in the 2017 movie, but it only mustered up a mere $1 million at the domestic box-office. With a dreadful 32% Rotten Tomatoes score, something was definitely rotten about the movie’s reception. I enjoyed it but have been a fan of Allen my whole life. Because of controversies surrounding his personal life, people have strayed from Allen’s work and his career has suffered as a result.

Recently, Allen’s movies have been box-office duds but given the pandemic, it’s hard to know how they would have fared under normal circumstances. Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning and Selena Gomez played in 2020’s A Rainy Day in New York but people simply weren’t going to the movies at the time it was released. Certainly not the older adults who are probably Allen’s biggest fans. No domestic box-office numbers are available at Box Office Mojo, but the 2020 movie did score $23 million internationally suggesting Allen’s work could still have some life left in it. We can pretend his last film, Rifkin’s Festival, never happened since it was barely released.

The old days of Allen pictures being event films seem to be long behind us, but anything can happen in the future. Though the thrill of Allen’s prime moviemaking days could be over for him, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have one last hit left in him.

Allen has taken to writing more these days with very intriguing work such as Apropos of Nothing and Zero Gravity, the latter being a fascinating essay collection. Baldwin, himself, has also been the subject of recent controversy but let’s leave these stars’ personal lives out of the equation. Instead, all eyes will be on Allen’s next film to see if it will, indeed, be his last hurrah.

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