The investors in Woody Allen’s new musical are sweating bullets — “Bullets Over Broadway.”
Just when it looked as if Allen’s new $15 million musical had a pretty clear shot at box-office and Tony-Award glory, the New York Times published Dylan Farrow’s essay accusing Allen of molesting her when she was a kid.
Who knows if the charges are true?
Allen refuted them in his own essay in the paper.
Clearly, the guy has a dark side: In “Manhattan,” he’s 40 and sleeping with a teenage Mariel Hemingway. He gets away with it only because he is, at least on-screen, sexually innocuous.
In real life, he was never prosecuted for the crime Dylan says he committed. And while his marriage to Soon-Yi is creepy, it’s not illegal.
But the court doesn’t buy tickets to Woody Allen shows.
New Yorkers do.
And the investors in “Bullets Over Broadway” are fretting that the scandal will damage their show.
From what I’ve learned, they should be worried.
“Bullets Over Broadway” was selling at a decent clip until Dylan’s accusations became public.
Sales have slowed down this week, and the advance now stands at just $4 million.
Any hopes that the show would open April 10 with $10 million in the bank have been dashed.
“They’ll be lucky if they get to $6 million by opening night,” says a source.
All is not lost, however.
There are, I’m sure, many New Yorkers who will not buy a ticket to a Woody Allen movie, let alone a Woody Allen musical, on principle. In their eyes, he’s a child-molesting creep, and that’s the end of it.
But there are other New Yorkers (and I’m in this camp), who, though we think he’s weird and would cross to the other side of the street if we saw him coming toward us, still go to his movies and watch masterpieces like “Annie Hall” at least once a year.
My sense is that most Broadway insiders — that is, Tony voters — fall in the latter category.
“I love Woody Allen movies,” says a Tony voter. “Woody Allen himself? Yuck. But I’ll judge the show on its merits. If it’s good, really good, it can win the Tony for Best Musical. If it’s bad, or just so-so, I think voters will look for something else to get behind.”
The onus, say several insiders, is on Susan Stroman, who’s directing and choreographing the musical. A Tony winner for “The Producers,” she’s a beloved figure on Broadway. If “Bullets Over Broadway” is good, she’ll reap the rewards and just might pull the show over the finish line for Best Musical.
But if her work isn’t top-notch, Tony voters will go for something else, “If/Then,” perhaps, or “After Midnight.”
“This is Susan’s show to lose,” says another Tony voter. “If her work’s half as good as it was on ‘The Producers,’ the show has a shot. If it’s not, it’s dead. I don’t think any of us could support a bad or even mediocre show by Woody Allen.”
Allen can rule out any chance of winning the Tony for Best Book — and not because he’s an accused child molester. Those who’ve read his script say it’s little more than his screenplay run through his typewriter.
“It’s not been reinvented for the stage the way Mel Brooks reinvented ‘The Producers,’ ” says a source.
“Bullets Over Broadway” begins previews next month.
Given the attention surrounding Allen’s scandalous life, you can be sure the same reporters who covered the first preview of “Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark” — that is to say, me and Patrick Healy — will be there.
We won’t judge Allen’s private life.
But we will judge his show.