It appears Woody Allen’s quest to find out if Europe is way cooler than the USA has been a success, as he just made a deal with production houses Mediapro and Gravier, which are based in Spain and produced Vicky Christina Barcelona, that will have them funding his next three films. Details on where these films will take place are scarce, but apparently Allen will be traveling a bit deeper into Europe for two of them.
This is a pretty sweet deal for Allen, as this deal consists mainly of Mediapro and Gravier, which is Letty “Woody Allen’s sister” Aronson’s company, handing him $66 million to split among the three pictures and letting him do whatever he wants. For those who are math-impaired like myself, that’s $22 million per film (I used a calculator for that one), which is a nice step up from the $15-18 million most of his recent films have cost. The two companies gave him a budget of just under $15 million for Vicky Christina Barcelona.
The deal also indicates the three pictures will be produced in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Considering work on Vicky Christina Barcelona is just about finished, this means Allen will most likely be taking some time off for the first time in a number of years. An image of Allen backpacking across Europe, staying in hostels with hordes of college kids just popped into my head. I’m sure hilarity would ensue from such circumstances. In fact, the more I think about that scenario, the more I wish Woody Allen would make a movie out of it.
UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter brief on this story mentions that Allen will be using that time to direct a film funded by Wild Bunch (they coughed up the cash for Cassandra’s Dream) set in New York, but I haven’t seen any hard information to back that up. Considering Allen says he directs films “to pass the time,” it certainly is possible, however.
By the way, that picture there was drawn by the famous New York Times caracurist Al Hirschfield. You can check out the rest of his shit here.