Amazon Studios has been sued by Woody Allen for
breaching their contract after the company refused to distribute his most
recent movie, A Rainy Day in New York.
Woody Allen, 83, is seeking more than $68 million in damages, alleging
Amazon Studios backed out of a multi-picture deal without cause.
Amazon released two of Woody Allen’s films and also distributed his TV
series, Crisis in Six Scenes.
According to a lawsuit filed on February 7 in New York, Woody Allen claims
Amazon backed out of the deal in June 2018 because of an old accusation that
the director had molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992.
The legal action said Amazon knew about “a 25-year old, baseless”
allegation when it entered into deals with Woody Allen and that it “does
not provide a basis for Amazon to terminate the contract”.
A Rainy Day in New York
was shot in 2017 with a cast including Jude Law, Rebecca Hall, Selena Gomez and
Timothée Chalamet.
A number of the movie’s cast members
have since distanced themselves from the project, with Timothée Chalamet
announcing in 2018 he would give his salary to charity.
In 2018, Jude Law told Vanity Fair it was “a terrible shame” the film had been shelved and that he would “have to consider carefully” before ever working with Woody Allen again.
Cafe Society, Woody Allen’s latest movie, will open this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The film, starring Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg and Steve Carell, centers on the buzzing cafe society of 1930s Hollywood.
Woody Allen has become the first director to present three opening-night films at Cannes.
Hollywood Ending opened the festival in 2002 and Midnight in Paris in 2011.
Photo IMDb
According to the festival organizers, Cafe Society tells the story “of a young man who arrives in Hollywood during the 1930s hoping to work in the film industry, falls in love, and finds himself swept up in the vibrant cafe society that defined the spirit of the age”.
Café Society marks a romantic reunion for Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg who appeared together in American Ultra.
The movie will screen out of competition at this year’s event, which runs from May 11 to 22, ahead of its release later this year.
Jodie Foster’s Money Monster starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, and Steven Spielberg’s The BFG are already confirmed to screen at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The full official selection will be announced mid-April.
Hollywood legend Woody Allen responded to his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow’s accusations of childhood molestation in a New York Times op-ed.
Woody Allen chose to respond in the same publication in which Dylan Farrow made the claim a week ago.
“Of course, I did not molest Dylan,” the film-maker wrote.
Dylan Farrow immediately responded with her own counterclaim, saying: “Nothing he says or writes can change the truth.”
Woody Allen responded to his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow’s accusations of childhood molestation
Woody Allen, 78, claimed the entire scandal was orchestrated by Dylan’s adopted mother Mia Farrow.
The film director and Mia Farrow were in a lengthy relationship that ended bitterly in 1992.
Dylan Farrow wrote, through a spokesman: “His op-ed is the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has leveled at me for the past 20 years. He insists my mother brought criminal charges – in fact, it was a pediatrician who reported the incident to the police based on my firsthand account. He suggests that no one complained of his misconduct prior to his assault on me – court documents show that he was in treatment for what his own therapist described as <<inappropriate>> behavior with me from as early as 1991.”
Woody Allen is again denying he molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in an open letter published online by The New York Times.
Woody Allen, 78, said Dylan Farrow had been coached to make the claim by his estranged former partner, Mia Farrow.
He wrote in the newspaper that Dylan Farrow had been “used as a pawn for revenge” against him by her mother.
Dylan Farrow wrote last week in the New York Times that Woody Allen abused her in 1992 when she was seven years old in an attic at Mia Farrow’s Connecticut home.
Woody Allen alleges that Mia Farrow orchestrated the “smear” after discovering earlier in the same year that he was having an affair with her other adopted daughter from a previous partner, Soon-Yi Previn.
He began a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn when she was about 19. They wed in 1997 and remain married.
“Not that I doubt Dylan hasn’t come to believe she’s been molested,but if from the age of 7 a vulnerable child is taught by a strong mother to hate her father because he is a monster who abused her, is it so inconceivable that after many years of this indoctrination the image of me Mia wanted to establish had taken root?” Woody Allen wrote.
Woody Allen is again denying he molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in an open letter
He adds: “Of course, I did not molest Dylan. I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter’s well-being.”
Dylan Farrow has previously said she decided to break her silence after two decades when Allen Allen’s latest film, Blue Jasmine, was nominated for an Oscar.
But Woody Allen said in his rebuttal that her allegation includes “creative flourishes that seem to have magically appeared during our 21-year estrangement”.
He wrote that he always kept away from the cramped attic because he suffers from claustrophobia.
“When I was in the blissful early stages of a happy new relationship with the woman I’d go on to marry, that I would pick this moment in time to embark on a career as a child molester should seem to the most skeptical mind highly unlikely,” he wrote.
Woody Allen points out that a panel of psychologists, appointed by prosecutors, concluded Dylan Farrow had not been molested.
He also wrote that he had passed a lie-detector test over the matter, while Mia Farrow, now 68, declined to take one.
Woody Allen said the article would be “my final word on this entire matter”, concluding: “Enough people have been hurt.”
The Los Angeles Times op-ed department had Dylan Farrow’s letter accusing Woody Allen of abuse prior to its publication on New York Times.
“We got it, we considered it, we ultimately decided not to use it,” said LA Times op-ed editor Sue Horton.
The Los Angeles Times op-ed department had Dylan Farrow’s letter accusing Woody Allen of abuse prior to its publication on New York Times
Dylan Farrow’s letter was eventually posted by columnist Nicholas Kristof Saturday afternoon on the New York Times website.
Nicholas Kristof included a disclosure in a separate blog post that he was friends with Dylan’s mother, Mia Farrow, and brother Ronan.
Earlier Wednesday, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan revealed that Woody Allen had contacted the paper and requested to write a response to Dylan Farrow’s claims.
Moses Farrow, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s adopted son, has defended the film-maker over a claim he molested adopted daughter Dylan in 1992.
Moses Farrow, 36, told People Magazine, he believed their mother had used the accusations to turn the children against Woody Allen.
Dylan Farrow recently renewed the abuse claim after speaking out in an open letter last week.
The authorities investigated her allegation at the time, but Woody Allen was not charged.
The film director has called the allegations “untrue and disgraceful” through his publicist.
Moses Farrow said he believed Mia Farrow had used the accusations to turn the children against Woody Allen
Moses Farrow told the magazine his mother had “drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister”.
“I see now that this was a vengeful way to pay him back for falling in love with Soon-Yi.”
Mia Farrow and Woody Allen split in 1992 after she discovered he was having an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter with a former partner.
Woody Allen wed Soon-Yi Previn in 1997, and the two remain married.
Dylan Farrow told People Magazine her brother’s comments were “such a betrayal to me and my whole family”.
“My memories are the truth and they are mine and I will live with that for the rest of my life,” she said, denying her mother had coached her to accuse Woody Allen.
Dylan Farrow has previously said she decided to break her silence after two decades, when Woody Allen’s latest film, Blue Jasmine, was nominated for an Oscar.
Mia Farrow has not directly responded to Moses’ statements but tweeted: “I love my daughter. I will always protect her. A lot of ugliness is going to be aimed at me. But this is not about me, it’s about her truth.”
The New York Times, which originally published Dylan Farrow’s open letter, said on Wednesday it may publish a response from Woody Allen.
Barbara Walters defended Woody Allen from allegations by his estranged daughter Dylan Farrow that he assaulted her when she was a child during Monday’s edition of The View.
Other panelists on the show tried to argue that Woody Allen’s previous attraction to younger women could give credibility to the claims, but Barbara Walters shut them down repeatedly.
“I know Mia [Farrow], I have a good relationship with her,” Barbara Walters explained.
Barbara Walters defended Woody Allen from allegations by his estranged daughter Dylan Farrow
“But I’ve been with Woody many times with his two daughters, he’s got almost a twenty-year-old marriage … I have rarely seen a father as sensitive, and as loving and as caring as Woody is to his daughters. … I don’t know about Dylan, I can only tell you about what I’ve seen now, that it’s a good marriage and that he’s a loving, caring father.”
“She has nothing to gain by coming out and saying this,” Jenny McCarthy said.
“Supposedly, she’s very angry,” Barbara Walters responded.
“But she’s doing it now because he’s up for an award, so the question is does your personal life interfere with the award?”
Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, has renewed claims the filmmaker “abused” her as a child in 1992.
In an open letter, Dylan Farrow accuses Woody Allen of molesting her in a “dim, closet-like attic” at the age of seven.
Dylan Farrow, now 28, also criticizes Hollywood’s continued celebration of “a predator [who] brought chaos into our home”.
Woody Allen, now 78, was investigated over the abuse allegations at the time of the incident, but was not charged.
A panel of psychologists, appointed by US prosecutors and the police, concluded that Dylan Farrow had not been molested.
The case caused controversy when a prosecutor later said there had been “probably cause” to charge Woody Allen, but he had chosen not to, in order to protect the child.
The movie director has always maintained his innocence. He has previously accused Mia Farrow of fabricating the claims after their highly publicized break-up in 1992.
Dylan Farrowopens her letter, published on the New York Times website, by asking: “What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house.
“He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he s**ually abused me.”
Dylan Farrow accuses Woody Allen of molesting her at the age of seven
Dylan Farrow, who now lives in Florida under a different name, said she developed an eating disorder and was self-harming following the incident.
“That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up,” she writes.
She said she decided to break her silence after two decades, when Woody Allen’s latest film, Blue Jasmine, was nominated for an Oscar last week.
Dylan Farrow explained that Hollywood had made her “torment worse” by turning “a blind eye” to her story.
“Each time I saw my abuser’s face – on a poster, on a t-shirt, on television – I could only hide my panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart. But this time, I refuse to fall apart,” she says.
Dylan Farrow also takes aim against actors who have appeared in Woody Allen’s movies.
“What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?”
Last month, Diane Keaton accepted a lifetime achievement award for Woody Allen, who has a reputation for being notoriously reclusive.
Diane Keaton’s move sparked a major debate on social networks. It drew heavy criticism from Woody Allen’s biological son with Mia Farrow, Ronan, who tweeted: “Missed the Woody Allen tribute – did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?”
Dylan Farrow’s letter has already sent ripples through Hollywood.
Blue Jasmine star Cate Blanchett responded to the piece saying: “It’s obviously been a long and painful situation for the family and I hope they find some resolution and peace.”
Meanwhile, hosts at the Writers Guild Awards ceremony included references to the scandal in their puns on Saturday night.
Mia Farrow became romantically involved with Woody Allen in the early 1980s. The pair, who never married and kept separate homes, jointly adopted Dylan and her brother, Moses.
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow split in 1992 amid revelations that Allen had an affair with another adopted daughter of the actress, Soon-Yi.
The molestation allegations surfaced shortly after the breakup.
Director Woody Allen has decided to stop his latest film Blue Jasmine from being screened in India after learning mandatory anti-tobacco adverts would be inserted into its smoking scenes.
Indian law requires health warnings to be shown on screen when characters smoke in films, while cinemas must play anti-smoking ads before every movie.
According to Reuters, Woody Allen refused to accommodate the ads during his film.
It had been due to open in around 30 cinemas at the weekend.
Blue Jasmine stars Cate Blanchett as a wealthy New York socialite who suffers a humiliating fall from grace after her husband is arrested for financial fraud.
Cate Blanchett’s critically acclaimed performance has seen her odds of winning an Oscar next year slashed to 1/4 from an initial 7/1 in August.
Woody Allen has decided to stop his latest film Blue Jasmine from being screened in India
The film features two smoking scenes that would have given cause for the on-screen disclaimers – typically scrolling text warning viewers of the dangers of tobacco use.
A publicist for Woody Allen told Reuters: “Due to content in the film, it cannot be shown in India in its intended manner. Therefore, the film is not scheduled to play there.”
The film’s Indian distributor, PVR films, told DNA newspaper the director had overall creative control over the film.
“He wasn’t comfortable with the disclaimer that we are required to run when some smoking scene is shown in films,” Deepak Sharma said.
“He feels that when the scroll comes, attention goes to it rather than the scene. We had to abide by the law and we don’t have control over the film.”
India’s film censor board regularly requires changes to films and while some directors allow the alterations, others have refused.
Many, including Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, argue changes to their films – including changing the aspect ratio in which some movies are shot – are unacceptable because they corrupt the artist’s vision.
Woody Allen’s spokesman dismissed as “absurd” speculation that the director may not be the father of Mia Farrow’s son Ronan.
The claims are “so fictitious and extravagantly absurd that he is not going to comment,” said his spokesman.
Mia Farrow’s admission to Vanity Fair that Ronan may “possibly” have been fathered by ex-husband Frank Sinatra has also been rubbished by the singer’s widow.
“It’s just a bunch of junk,” Barbara Sinatra told the Desert Sun newspaper.
“There’s always junk written – lies that aren’t true,” the 85-year-old said on Wednesday.
“It sounds like a phony to me.”
Ronan Farrow, 25, has made his own comment on the story, tweeting: “Listen, we’re all *possibly* Frank Sinatra’s son.”
Mia Farrow admitted to Vanity Fair that her son Ronan may “possibly” have been fathered by ex-husband Frank Sinatra
Mia Farrow’s comments came in a lengthy article in Vanity Fair‘s November issue, which also contains quotes from eight of the actress’s children.
In excerpts released ahead of its publication, Mia Farrow claims she and Frank Sinatra “never really split up” following the end of their two-year marriage in 1968.
Mia Farrow subsequently married, and divorced, the composer Andre Previn, with whom she had three children and adopted three more.
The actress went on to have both a professional and personal relationship with Woody Allen, with whom she had Ronan – originally named Satchel – in 1987.
The revelation that Woody Allen was having a secret affair with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn caused the break-up of their 12-year relationship in 1992.
This led to a bitter custody battle in which Woody Allen was accused of molesting their adopted daughter Dylan, charges Allen denied and which have never been proved.
Dylan, who now goes under the name Malone, refers to the alleged molestation in the Vanity Fair article, claiming she had been “scared” and had “wanted it to stop”.
“I have never been asked to testify,” she is quoted as saying.
“If I could talk to the seven-year-old Dylan, I would tell her to be brave, to testify.”
The article offers further insights into how Mia Farrow and Woody Allen’s acrimonious break-up has impacted on their biological and adopted children.
Fletcher Previn, it is revealed, used Photoshop to remove Woody Allen from every family photo and edited him out of the Farrow’s home videos.
Speaking in 2005, Woody Allen confirmed he no longer had relationships with the three children from his relationship with Mia Farrow.
Ronan Farrow, now a human rights campaigner and journalist, is reportedly in talks to host his own show on US channel MSNBC.
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