Nov. 10 (UPI) — Filmmaker Woody Allen has settled his breach of contract lawsuit against Amazon after the company canceled a deal for four films.
Terms were not announced by attorneys for Allen and Amazon on Friday night. In a suit filed in federal court in New York in February, Allen claimed he was owed between $68 million and $73 million in minimum guarantee payments.
Allen said Amazon had canceled the deal because of a “25-year-old baseless allegation.” Allen has long denied allegations by his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, that he raped her when she was 7 years old.
In 2018, Amazon halted the release of “A Rainy Day in New York” and then canceled a deal for three more films. Amazon cited Allen’s “controversial comments” about the scandal involving Harvey Weinstein and the #metoo movement.
Allen expressed sympathy for Weinstein as well as his victims, saying it was “very sad for everybody involved.”
He said: “You don’t want it to lead to a witch-hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself.”
In a motion to dismiss part of Allen’s suit, Amazon said his comments effectively sabotaged promotional efforts for his films and undercut the worth of the agreement.
“Scores of actors and actresses expressed profound regret for having worked with Allen in the past, and many declared publicly that they would never work with him in the future,” Amazon’s attorneys said. “Allen’s actions and their cascading consequences ensured that Amazon could never possibly receive the benefit of its four-picture agreement.”
“A Rainy Day in New York” was released this fall outside the United States by his production company Gravier Productions. It has grossed $11.5 million in theaters around the globe.
