Update, Monday, September 19:
Return your fireworks and recork your Champagne. It turns out Woody Allen does not intend to stop making movies. “Woody Allen never said he was retiring, not did he say he was writing another novel,” a representative for the director said in a statement, according to Variety. “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.” Oh, okay.
Original story follows:
Woody Allen plans to retire from film after the release of his next movie, Wasp 22, the director announced in an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. “My idea, in principle, is not to make more movies and focus on writing,” Allen said, explaining that his next project will likely be a novel. Allen previously told Alec Baldwin in a terrifying Instagram Live interview that “the thrill is gone” from directing. “When I used to do a film, it’d go into a movie house all across the country. Now you do a movie and you get a couple weeks in a movie house,” Allen told Baldwin. According to Allen, Wasp 22 is similar to his 2005 thriller Match Point and will be “exciting, dramatic, and also very sinister.” Little else is known about Wasp 22 other than that the film is set in Paris and will be entirely in French. Allen has largely worked in Europe following renewed interest in Dylan Farrow’s sexual-abuse allegations against him.
