Woody Allen makes one movie a year. He has a cycle of writing, casting, directing, post-production, editing and releasing a film, usually during a summer film festival. Woody’s 2018 movie was filmed last fall, and it’s called A Rainy Day In New York. IMDB doesn’t have a release date listed, which is no surprise because (as I said) he’s gotten into the habit of premiering his films at festivals, and we’re still months away from Cannes or Venice taking submissions. But some people are wondering if A Rainy Day In New York will even be released theatrically. Dylan Farrow came out last week for her first on-camera interview, and actors have been disavowing Woody for several weeks now, even some of the actors from A Rainy Day In New York, like Selena Gomez, Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Hall (note: Jude Law and Elle Fanning still haven’t said anything). So what will happen to the film?

[There is a] massive P.R. headache for A Rainy Day in New York, Allen’s latest romantic comedy which co-stars Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, Jude Law, and Diego Luna and has a planned theatrical release by Amazon Studios at some unspecified point this year… But according to several insiders with knowledge of the studio/streaming service’s business operations, A Rainy Day’s roll-out will be negatively affected if not outright cancelled by the fast-spreading groundswell of anti-Allen sentiment.

One challenge the studio will face is the issue of optics in a post-Roy Price Amazon. In October, Price, the president of its studio division, resigned after being accused of pressuring an executive producer on an Amazon original series to have sex and making crude references to sex. According to several sources contacted by Vulture, the studio feels pressure to “make a statement that ‘We don’t tolerate sexual harassment’” by not releasing A Rainy Day. “Amazon can definitely afford to eat the cost of that movie,” says one influential marketing executive (who, like others in this story, requested anonymity). “They can show the community who they are by being aggressive. And the producers would never sue. You’d look like a f–king moron if you sue for damages.”

Other insiders, however, say a more likely play for Amazon…would be to cancel A Rainy Day’s theatrical run and quietly put the film out on its streaming platform with little or no promotion. Like Netflix, Amazon Prime does not release numbers indicating how many streams specific titles generate (thereby mitigating any possible perception of A Rainy Day as a flop). And by bypassing theaters, the company heads off backlash by movie exhibitors refusing to book the movie in their theaters. “If I’m handling this internally, I say, ‘Let’s hold our water. Let’s not date this thing yet. Let’s see if this thing blows over. America forgets everything anyway,’” says another insider who is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “Woody would not have signed a contract with Amazon that did not guarantee theatrical distribution. But they could say, ‘Woody, we have a problem. We need to renegotiate.’”

But according to some old Hollywood hands, Allen’s films are essentially backlash-proof, Allen himself having established a singular cinematic voice that allows him to continue making and releasing movies no matter the mounting outcry against him. “Look, these allegations have haunted this guy for decades and this is a very different time and cultural moment unlike any before it,” says a former studio executive. “My very jaded perspective is that his fans are older and those who go see his films are very set in their ways. This is going to be a horrible analogy but it’s like the Alabama voters who turned out for Roy Moore. Woody will always have his fans no matter what.”

[From Vulture]

Actually I think the Roy Moore-Woody Allen analogy is spot on. It works at every level. And I agree, that there will be a very slim minority of film-watchers who will see A Rainy Day in New York on whatever platform it’s offered on. I think Amazon will probably do the “soft release” on streaming too, and if Woody’s contract demands a theatrical release, they’ll just do a limited release (New York and LA) and not force any of the actors to promote the film. That’s the other headache – say they do some kind of low-key premiere for the film – how on earth is Jude Law supposed to sit there and do a traditional junket?

Also: you know how Timothee Chalamet threw Woody Allen under the bus and he cryptically referenced something about “contractual obligations” limiting what he could say about Woody publicly? Well, HuffPo got their hands on Chalamet’s contract and there is no clause or wording in his contract which says that Chalamet cannot make public comments about Woody. I don’t know… that seems rather nitpicky. Granted, Chalamet might have been stretching the truth a bit with “contractual obligations,” but it’s considered really bad form for any actor to publicly bad-mouth any director or any film.

Photos courtesy of WENN.