Woody Allen and Amazon have settled the wrongful termination lawsuit that the director filed earlier this year against the digital titan. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “the two sides filed paperwork with a New York federal court that stipulated to dismissal of the case with prejudice.” However, the terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
In February, Allen filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon that claimed the tech giant’s streaming video branch wrongfully terminated his contract due to the “25-year old, baseless allegation” of sexual abuse leveled by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow. The suit stated that Amazon didn’t have the legal authority to terminate the director’s contract and claimed that Amazon was aware “that its actions would cause substantial damage to Mr. Allen.” The contract termination effectively canceled the release of the writer-director’s next four films, which would have resulted in “minimum guaranteed payments totaling between $68 million and $73 million.”
Amazon’s defense for terminating its contract with Allen were due to his comments surrounding the #MeToo movement, where he expressed sympathy for Harvey Weinstein and his victims saying the circumstances were “very sad for everybody involved.” Amazon also noted Allen’s comment as problematic: “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.’” The studio and TV giant alleged that Allen’s comments “sabotaged promotional efforts for his films” and affected the value of their agreement.
The lawsuit’s dismissal comes after the European opening of Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York, one of Allen’s movies covered under his agreement with Amazon. At the moment, the film has yet to find a U.S. distributor.
