Director Woody Allen has been given the keys to write and direct his first television series, which will be available next year on Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service.
Amazon announced its decision to give Allen the reigns to his own project, just days after its transgender series Transparent took home multiple awards at Sunday night’s Golden Globes.
Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price spoke of the decision in a statement, saying, “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.” He finished: “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 also spoke of the opportunity, adding: “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.”
Sunday’s Golden Globes saw Amazon’s Transparent – an original series about a family struggling with its father’s admission that he is transgender – win this year’s Golden Globe award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. The show’s leading man, Jeffrey Tambor, eventually took home the award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
Amazon is likely trying to strike while the iron is hot in offering the project to the director, who has built up a lot of rapport within Hollywood’s inner circles but has remained relatively quiet in recent years.
Allen certainly won’t be the first member of his family to take on the task of trying to find television success. His estranged son, Ronan Farrow, from his marriage to Mia Farrow, has been hosting a daily program on MSNBC since Feb. of 2014.
The show, aptly named Ronan Farrow Daily, is again fighting rumors of a cancellation, after underperforming in ratings. The program now only averages around 50,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic.
At one point last year, Ronan Farrow Daily was reportedly outperformed by an 8 a.m. re-run of Golden Girls on the Hallmark channel.
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