A Spanish newspaper reported last week that Woody Allen was going to retire after his next film, Wasp 22, which is set to begin filming in Paris soon. La Vanguardia reported that Allen wanted to dedicate more time to writing, instead of filmmaking and was retiring from the world of movies.
A lot of outlets took this and ran stories about the director’s retirement, hastily compiling top 10 listicles and tearfully mourning the loss of an artistic voice.
However, Allen’s representatives released a statement, via Variety, saying these claims were simply untrue.
Timothée Chalamet and Selena Gomez starred in Allen’s A Rainy Day In New York but both donated their salaries to charity as a response to the resurfaced abuse allegations against Allen. Credit: Signature Entertainment
The statement clarified: “Woody Allen never said he was retiring, nor did he say he was writing another novel. He said he was thinking about not making films as making films that go straight or very quickly to streaming platforms is not so enjoyable for him, as he is a great lover of the cinema experience. Currently, he has no intention of retiring and is very excited to be in Paris shooting his new movie, which will be the 50th.”
Allen has written several books before and focusing on writing wouldn’t be a surprising move from the controversial director, but as of now, Woody Allen is not officially retiring from filmmaking.
Allen’s last film was Rifkin’s Festival which did not find a distributor in the UK and his previous film, 2019’s Rainy Day In New York was received poorly by the critics. Many of the film’s actors have publicly said they regret working with Allen, who has been accused of sexual abuse, and donated their salaries from the film to charity.
