Amazon Studios broke new ground this weekend at the Golden Globes, winning its first major awards with the Best Television Series and Best Actor – Comedy or Musical statues going to Transparent. Now, the streaming service is ramping up another first: signing Woody Allen to his first-ever TV series. Amazon has ordered a full season of the Untitled Woody Allen Project, which will premiere exclusively on Prime Instant Video. The Oscar-winner will write and direct the half-hour show whose logline is under wraps. (Allen previously penned an unaired sitcom pilot, The Laughmakers, for ABC in 1962.)
An exact time frame was not provided for the project, however Amazon says its customers in the U.S., the UK and Germany will be able to see the series next year. Further details, including casting, are to come.
“Woody Allen is a visionary creator who has made some of the greatest films of all-time, and it’s an honor to be working with him on his first television series,” said Roy Price, Vice President of Amazon Studios. “From Annie Hall to Blue Jasmine, Woody has been at the creative forefront of American cinema and we couldn’t be more excited to premiere his first TV series exclusively on Prime Instant Video next year.”
Allen added, “I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price will regret this.” He’s repped by ICM Partners.
Way to be positive, Woody.
Way to be literal, Ben.
I’m not entirely sure it’s his “first” series, as THE LAUGHMAKERS was actually a pilot that ABC passed on; had things gone another way, Allen would have had a regular series fifty years ago…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056169/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_65
Amazon is coming on. Look out!
Methinks Amazon will get more mileage out of the headline than the project itself. I will not be watching.
What about THE LAUGHMAKERS in 1962???
Will it star Bill Cosby?
I’m sure it will be great.
Hannah and Her Sisters/Annie Hall Woody Allen doing a tv show would be amazing. Midnight in Paris/magic in the moonlight woody not so much.
I love it! “I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price will regret this.” Absolutely the right approach to the project. Sounds like a total winner!
The untitled series will be about an older, nebbish New York professor (suffering from writers block) or musician (suffering from performance anxiety and/or writers block) who, in the midst of a divorce from his neurotic but intelligent wife, strikes up an illicit relationship with one of his much, much younger students.
We finally get rid of Letterman on TV and now here comes the new perv. TV viewers can’t win with all these perverts. Is there a delicate balance of Pervs allowed on the air, ha-ha.
NBC needs to realize it’s mistake and dump Fallon for Jay Leno.
Hallelujah! Thank you for being RIGHT.
I hope it’s not a show centered on an arrogant old bastard that screws his step-daughter – then marries her….disgusting.
Bravo. TV has scraped the bottom of the barrel.
I do not want to be a screenwriter or a director. I am not in competition with Allen for his new gig. But I hoped that the new platforms would be a venue for up and coming talent and that Amazon and Netflix would seek them out. Instead, they go to the same old dinos who ‘don’t know how [they] got into this & have no ideas and not sure where to begin. ‘
I think there is plenty of talent out there, writing books and plays and screenplays and spec scripts and making short films who do have ideas and do know where to begin. Why are entertainment liberals always sucking all the oxygen out of that level playing field they’re always talking about?
’cause the old-timers can at least write eight lines that actually make sense. The “new platforms” need EXACTLY that kind of news and, yes, talent. And Allens comment is obviously a funny remark. A joke. Funny, get it? Naw, you don’t, then again you are not in competition with Allen for his new gig. (Why would you call a TV Series “a gig”?
Woody does have some TV writing experience as one (of many) writers on “Your Show of Shows,” where he learned a lot about (and got a ton of material for) comedy and humor writing.
This trumps any development anywhere. It’s a huge story and will be a hugely anticipated series. Let’s hope they let the guy make the show he wants and not necessarily what they want.
I will never stop puking.
How is this a win? When was the last time a Woody Allen movie made money? And now this pervert is going to Amazon?
Serious mistake Amazon. The 10 people that would watch this show are too old to even know how to use a computer…