Make fun of Jimmy Fallon all you want for his sponsored content. While the late-night host is always doing crap like “Jimmy Tells a Scary Campfire Story Sponsored By KitchenAid” and “Pup Quiz with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Partnership with State Farm,” he at least hasn’t changed the name of his program to The Bass Pro Shop Tonight Show.
Not yet, anyway.
You can’t say the same for Woody Allen. The 89-year-old director has had trouble finding funding for his films in recent years, with “89 years old” being one of the least objectionable reasons for not financing his movies. But Woody finally got a taker — Madrid‘s regional government will pony up $1.7 million (not much, as it turns out) for the director’s next opus.
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Woody gets the cash as long as he films in the Spanish capital, which shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a pretty good-looking city! “The advertising and promotion of destinations through film has been a branding tool throughout the history of cinema,” according to a document posted by the regional government, per Deadline.
But Madrid’s deal with Allen comes with even more strings attached. Not only must Allen feature the city in the movie’s backdrops — who cares, since metropolitan skylines are practically a Woody trope — but a clause in the deal stipulates that Allen must include the word “Madrid” in the movie’s title.
Madrid Max? Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madrid-ness? It’s a Madrid Madrid Madrid Madrid World?
Whatever the title, Allen will need to raise more cash before he can make his movie, and that’s never an easy proposition. “If you are a writer at home and you fail, you throw the paper away and you start over,” Allen told Bill Maher last month on the Club Random podcast. “If you are a filmmaker, you have to constantly raise 15, 20, 30 million dollars or something … And so it gets dicey.”
But Allen has plenty of ideas if he can convince another entity to cough up some dough. “If someone shows up and calls in and says we want to back the film, then I would seriously consider it,” he told The Guardian in 2023. “I would probably not have the willpower to say no, because I have so many ideas.”
Since Allen is a borderline pariah in his home country, it will take countries like Spain to provide a home for his filmmaking. He’s been playing that card for a while, filming Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and Rifkin’s Festival (2020) with that country as a backdrop. The rumor mill in Spain is speculating that Allen will reunite with Vicky Cristina Barcelona co-stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.
That’s all on the condition that he can write a screenplay with Madrid in the title. If he gets stuck, he can always call Fallon for Entertainment Advice, Sponsored by Instacart.
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