How will Allen Spend the Extra Cash?

We've previously posted that MediaPro is producing Woody Allen's next 3 films on a budget of around 23 million, easily Allen's highest-ever budgets. How will he spend the extra money?

There are also rumours that the lady from amchi Mumbai has become the highest paid Indian actress ever. Freida Pinto is set to receive around three million dollars for her role in Woody Allen’s upcoming London project. This means that she would be the highest paid Indian actress of all time, earning twice as much as top Bollywood actresses are paid! And all it took was one movie - this girl is going to go far.The still untitled Woody Allen project, starring Freida Pinto, Anthony Hopkins, Josh umours that Brolin, Naomi Watts and Antonio Banderas, is set to shoot this summer in London.

Pinto on Meeting Woody Allen

The Times of India is running an article with Freida Pinto, which includes the following:

How has the interaction with Woody Allen been?

I would describe my meeting with Woody Allen as “different”. He’s a shy and reticent director but one with a beautiful vision. It will be a dream-come-true since I was a literature student and I studied Woody Allen’s plays back in college.

Which is your favourite Woody Allen film?

Matchpoint.

A lot is being said about how your casting in a Woody Allen film might pave the way for a change in the way Indian actors are offered roles of cabbies and doctors in Hollywood films. Do you agree?

I hope it does as it isn’t good to be typecast and globalization of films is an emerging trend. Also, crossover films are being made in a bigger way, thereby creating many more opportunities for our talent.

Cast Continues to Take Shape

Woody Allen's summer project will now include Antonio Banderas alongside already listed (see the posts immediately beneath this one) Watts, Pinto, Brolin and Hopkins.

Pinto and Watts

Variety reports that Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts will join the already established cast of Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins in Woody Allen's upcoming London project. If this one does not soar to the heights, it's on Woody.

Cruz Wins Oscar

Whatever Works: Not Like Mighty Aphrodite

Woody Allen has supplied the Irish Times with an interview. If you've read any Allen interviews in the last decade, you've more or less read this one. Not Allen's fault. The questions are always retread, and Allen, if he's anything, is consistent. The answers are always the same. I suppose most audiences don't spend their leisure hours reading this blog, so what's old to us is new to them. My favorite snippet:

Evan Rachel Wood has said that Whatever Works is closer to Mighty Aphrodite than any other Allen picture.

“She said that? My God! I can’t see any similarity whatsoever between the two movies – not a remote similarity. It’s interesting how a person can see a movie so differently. I remember when my sister saw Hannah and Her Sisters and she thought it was closer to Sleeper than my other movies. I told her she must be crazy, that there was no comparison between the two. Yet she saw some similarity there, although nobody else in the world did. And I don’t think there’s another human on the face of the earth who will find the most remote similarity between Whatever Works and Mighty Aphrodite .”

Brolin, Hopkins, and London

Whatever Works is set to open on June 19. We're all happy about that.

The other thing that will be happening this summer is Woody Allen will film his next in London. Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins are set to star. More details forthcoming.

Oscar Press Photo

In advance of the Oscars, Vanity Fair is running a Penelope Cruz/Woody Allen photo that is easy on the eyes.

Cruz has been in the press lately, exchanging platitudes and pleasantries with the chattering class. We've not linked to many of her VCB-related interviews because they're mostly trivial. No offense to her, but you can only do so much with same inane questions. And although we're trying to keep up with the award march, we take the entire season with a grain of salt. It means something and it doesn't. Rightly understood, it's more of a marketing expo than an ascription of prestige.

Nevertheless, Cruz is very positive about her experience with Allen. We suspect that this is not their last project together.

Paris, 2009: Not so fast

In a previous post, we had alerted readers to Woody Allen's Summer Project 2009. That project was supposed to be shot in Paris, and at a budget in the low to mid 20s. But for various reasons, the Paris project has been pushed back until Autumn 2010. It's a long time coming, and we hope Woody Allen can sustain his youthful vigor long enough to see the project through.

In the meantime, Woody Allen will shoot his next film this Spring/Summer in NYC. The budget for that film should also be in the 20s, which is small fortune relative to his career standards. This marks the second time in recent years that the director will have a long lay off between films. During his last layoff, he tried his hand at opera and a tour with his jazz band. Hopefully, he'll find a fun project to fill his time in between his NYC and Paris shoots, whether a stage production, film production, or a run of New Yorker shorts. Or, maybe another novel.

Small Time Crooks Re-visited

We're not sure who Ed Howard is, but we like him.

John, you're right that for some reason people seem to attack Woody when he makes a "light" film these days, as though he didn't start his career as a director of utterly light comedies. This happened even as recently as Scoop, which I thought was really fun and funny, but everyone else seemed to bash for not being as serious as Match Point. Personally, I'd say Bananas has not held up so well, and some of Woody's more recent straight-up comedies -- like Manhattan Murder Mystery, with its brilliant tribute to The Lady From Shanghai -- are much better. Then again, he's also made quite a few more substantial films in his late career as well.

This comment followed a spot-on evaluation of Small Time Crooks, which you should abandon us to read now.

Whatever Works Images

Thanks to Tim S. for bringing our attention to these photos from the set of Whatever Works.

Axel Kuschevatzky Interviews Woody Allen

We'll have more to say about these interviews in the coming days, but until then they're posted here for you to take it. Thanks to those who alerted us to the clips.