Woody Allen’s film “A Rainy Day in New York” was expected to be released more than two years ago. However, with the filmmaker’s past coming back to haunt him with allegations of sexual abuse still being lobbed his way, combined with his comments about #MeToo, ‘Rainy Day’ was dropped by Amazon Studios and has yet to be released in North America. However, thanks to Signature Entertainment, the UK-based home release distributor, the film is finally getting a digital release in global territories. And it appears that North America could be getting Allen’s film sooner rather than later.
Speaking to Deadline, Signature Entertainment CCO Jon Bourdillon spoke about working with Woody Allen on releasing “A Rainy Day in New York” and why his company was willing to step up with distributors around the world wouldn’t bother. And in regards to that latter issue, it appears that Signature had no reservations working with Allen, considering he’s seemingly blacklisted from Hollywood.
“No. The man has not been charged with anything,” explained Bourdillon. “We discussed it in the office. We didn’t speak to any of our clients about how they’d feel about it, because our view was that this man hasn’t been charged with anything and he has always contested any claims made against him. We took a view that it would have been inappropriate to refuse to deal with him. There are other people in the business who have been charged with various things in the past and their films are in distribution. We are a film distributor. When a piece of entertainment comes to us that we think will be of interest to the UK public we plug that gap from moviemaking to home entertainment.”
He added, “I can understand how larger companies with more employees and more complex structures might arrive at a different decision, but our management team didn’t feel that it was inappropriate and Woody’s people were delighted to find us as a partner.”
While he isn’t able to confirm plans for a North American release of ‘Rainy Day’ just yet, it is in the works. And the COVID-19 pandemic is making negotiations a bit easier.
“The conversations we’ve had so far with a few platforms and distributors have been positive,” he said. “At the moment, there is little new content being made available so there is a demand for starry, romantic-comedies, in particular.”
So, it would appear that ‘Rainy Day’ will appear in North America at some point. It’s just unknown where/how it will show up. That being said, Signature Entertainment could go the VOD route, as it did in other territories. Or maybe Netflix or another streaming service is willing to take a chance on Woody Allen? We’ll wait and see.