First Look: Woody Allen-Miley Cyrus Amazon Series ‘Crisis in Six Scenes’

Amazon has released the first footage from its upcoming Woody Allen series Crisis in Six Scenes, a project that Allen himself warned last year could be a “cosmic embarrassment” for the premium streaming service.

Crisis centers on the turbulent late 1960s and stars Allen as Sidney Munsinger, a man caught “in the midst of the social turmoil” of the era. Allen wrote and directed the six-episode series, which also stars Miley Cyrus, Elaine May, Michael Rapaport, Lewis Black, Joy Behar, Rachel Brosnahan and John Magaro.

In the first clip released from the series, a straight-shooting barber (Max Casella) tries to talk Allen’s character out of getting a James Dean haircut and tells him he couldn’t finish his under-200-page novella because he kept “dozing off.”

At the Cannes Film Festival last year, Allen said he was struggling to develop the short television series and called the undertaking a “catastrophic mistake” that could end up a “cosmic embarrassment” for Amazon.

“I never should have gotten into it. I thought it would be really easy, to do six half-hours. I thought it would be a cinch. But it’s not. It’s very, very hard,” Allen said last May.

Amazon Studios executives were forced to defend their decision to collaborate with Allen last year after the auteur’s adopted daughter Dylan Farrow accused him of sexual abuse in an open letter published in the New York Times.

“I think you have to look at the whole picture but… yeah, take everything into account, but our focus is on the fact that he is a great filmmaker and storyteller. And so we look forward to the show in 2016,” Amazon Studios chief Roy Price told reporters at last year’s Television Critics Association press tour when asked about the allegations leveled against Allen.

Crisis in Six Scenes is set to premiere September 30 on Amazon Prime.

 

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum