Woody Allen Coming to TV through Amazon

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has partnered with neurotic filmmaker Woody Allen. The move may perhaps have been inspired by the the triumphant win at the Golden Globes by “Transparent”.

By convincing the king of independent cinema to join ranks at Amazon, the company is strengthening its reputation as “the arthouse cinema of television providers,” as labelled by Vanity Fair earlier today.

No details on casting or plot have come to light yet, but one can expect it to resonate with Woody Allen’s favourite themes.

On the news, Allen had a few words to share: “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 [Amazon Studios Vice President] Roy Price will regret this.”

Jill Soloway, creator of Transparent, apparently enjoyed a lot of freedom by Amazon in the creation of her hit series. Woody Allen can expect similar freedom to just be himself. Soloway has said that her series was like ““a five-hour movie.”

“Amazon has the most amount of creative freedom that I’ve ever experienced in this business. Even including when I was making my independent film. . . To have the kind of space to really breathe and invest our craft into something so deeply, and to have it be about family and emotion, feels brand new. Even HBO, which is an amazing place, it has levels of development that make things happen slowly. Amazon just pulled the trigger and went big, and it’s been an amazing experience,” said Soloway.

The kind of artistic license provided by companies like Amazon, Netflix and other major cable companies are drawing bigger and notable cinematic auteurs. Big shot directors like David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh, have already tested the waters with television. But Woody Allen joining the little screen represents a major power shift.