10 Directors Who Sabotaged Their Own Movies

8. Woody Allen - A Rainy Day In New York

In the case of Woody Allen, he played himself so severely his film didn't even ended up released - at least, not yet.

Allen is a famously low maintenance filmmaker whose projects don't tend to cost too much and can be shot speedily, allowing him to reliably release a new movie every year.

He shot his new romantic comedy, A Rainy Day in New York, in late 2017 with a cast including Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna and Liev Schreiber.

Amazon Studios originally planned to distribute the film as part of a four-picture deal with Allen, though last summer terminated the contract and shelved the film as a result of Allen's tone-deaf comments about the Me Too movement and renewed attention towards historic sexual abuse allegations made against him.

In a statement, Amazon said that Allen "made a series of public comments suggesting that he failed to grasp the gravity of the issues or the implications for his own career."

Allen infamously criticised the witch-hunt potential of Me Too, while expressing tacit sympathy for Harvey Weinstein and calling himself a "poster boy" for the movement.

This also prompted many of the film's cast members to donate their salaries to anti-sexual assault organisations and insist they won't work with Allen again.

Whether or not you believe the accusations against Allen, clearly the smartest thing he could've done for his career was keep quiet.

By opening his mouth in such an obnoxious way and showing a staggering lack of self-awareness, 2018 was the first time in 37 years that he went a year without releasing a new movie.

Allen is currently wrapping up production on his next movie, Rifkin's Festival, though it remains to be seen if that will find significant distribution, especially as location shooting in Spain was met with protests.