Woody Allen calls Amazon show a catastrophic mistake: Cannes 2015

In typically self-deprecating and brutally honest fashion, Woody Allen has revealed he’s regretting his decision to make a six-episode TV show for Amazon and that it’s “bound to be a cosmic embarrassment”. The filmmaker spoke about the series during the Cannes press conference for his latest film, Irrational Man.

"It was a catastrophic mistake for me," Allen said of the untitled show. "I'm doing my best with it, I'm struggling at home. But I never should have gone into it.

“It's very hard for me. I thought it was going to be easy. You do a movie, it's a big long thing but to do six half-hours I thought it would be a cinch. But it's not. It's very, very hard and I just hope I don't disappoint Amazon. I am struggling with it. I don't watch any television series really, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm floundering."

To make matters worse Allen also revealed to Deadline that he doesn’t have a clue what Amazon Instant Video is. “I don’t even know what a streaming service is; that’s the interesting thing. When you said streaming service, it was the first time I’ve heard that term connected with the Amazon thing.”

Time to be worried? We’d take the statements with a pinch of salt, especially given that the famously neurotic filmmaker was similarly self-effacing when the show was first announced, saying: “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 [VP of Amazon Studios] will regret this.”

Allen plans to fit the show in-between films, which he still releases annually at the age of 79. His latest, Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, is a comedy about a nihilistic philosophy professor who decides to kill a corrupt judge.

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