Publishers Don’t Want Woody Allen’s New Memoir
Woody Allen shopped around a manuscript for his new memoir, but publishers didn’t want anything to do with it.
A New York Times report detailed how executives at multiple publishing houses rejected Allen’s memoir that he tried to sell late last year largely due to his increasing persona non grata status.
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A-list actors, producers, and publishers once flocked to Woody Allen projects, but the directing icon’s reputation has suffered in the wake of the Me Too movement. As greater attention has been paid to allegations of Allen molesting his at the time 7-year-old daughter Dylan Farrow, Hollywood has distanced itself from the auteur. Amazon has shelved his most recent film “A Rainy Day in New York” and several actors have either expressed regret over working with the director or vowed never to work with him again, including Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, Ellen Page, Michael Caine, and Timothée Chalamet.
According to the New York Times, some publishing executives described working with Allen as “toxic” in the Me Too era.
In Europe, Allen’s reputation is somewhat less tarnished, and he is in pre-production on a film with a Spanish producer. It’s possible a French publisher would take on the manuscript, which is said to be finished.
The writer and longtime friend of Allen, Daphne Merkin, told the NY Times that Allen said the he had been working on the memoir for a long time. “He’s not one to set the record straight, but presumably, the memoir is his side of things,” said Merkin. “He’s the kind of person who soldiers on, and someone whose work is his nutrient. Whatever vicissitudes he’s been exposed to, I think he keeps his own counsel about how all this affects and doesn’t affect him.”
“Personally, I don’t foresee any work in his future,” Tim Gray, the awards editor at Variety told the New York Times.
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