Woody Allen Settles $68 Million Amazon Lawsuit Over Canceled Films

Woody Allen and Amazon have reportedly reached a settlement in the director’s $68 million lawsuit against the company over a scrapped four-picture agreement.

The Oscar-winning director has ended the breach-of-contract suit, according to multiple outlets, with legal teams for the company and the filmmaker filing a joint notice to dismiss the case on Friday night.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but an unnamed source told Deadline that “there were no winners in this in the end.”

In February, Allen brought the suit against Amazon over the shelved release of his already completed film “A Rainy Day in New York” and the termination of a multifilm deal amid increased scrutiny into allegations that he sexually abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was 7 years old in 1992.

Allen has repeatedly denied the accusations and claimed in the suit that Amazon knew of the “25-year-old, baseless allegation” when entering into the agreement in 2016, but withdrew in response to pressure from the Me Too movement. 

After Allen and Amazon’s deal went public, Farrow penned an open letter in the Los Angeles Times about why her father has been spared while powerful men in the entertainment industry, including Harvey Weinstein and Amazon Studios executive Roy Price, have been brought down by sexual assault and misconduct allegations. 

In response to Allen’s suit, Amazon defended backing out of the deal by claiming the director’s controversial comments over allegations of sexual abuse and the Me Too movement effectively sabotaged the release of his 2017 film “Wonder Wheel” and “justified” its decision not to finance or distribute any further films.

The Jeff Bezos-owned studio cited Allen’s response to son Ronan Farrow’s bombshell New Yorker article about Weinstein ― the director said he was “sad for Harvey that [his] life is so messed up” ― and his warning against a “witch hunt atmosphere” in the wake of the allegations against the film producer. 

At the time, a handful of actors, including Ellen Page, Timothée Chalamet, Greta Gerwig, Rebecca Hall and Colin Firth, who worked with Allen in the past, publicly disassociated from the director, further contributing to the company’s claim that the partnership couldn’t be viable in the current climate.

“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 in a motion to dismiss part of the suit, according to Variety. “Allen’s actions and their cascading consequences ensured that Amazon could never possibly receive the benefit of its four-picture agreement.”

Allen has since teamed with the Spanish production company Mediapro and completed filming on his next feature film, “Rifkin’s Festival,” which stars Christoph Waltz and Gina Gershon.

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.