Christoph Waltz, Gina Gershon to star in new Woody Allen Spain-set movie

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 29: Christoph Waltz walks the red carpet ahead of the opening ceremony and the 'First Man' screening during the 75th Venice Film Festival at Sala Grande on August 29, 2018 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images) CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 11: Director Woody Allen attends the "Cafe Society" Photocall during The 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Venturelli/WireImage) NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 27: Gina Gershon attends the "Ant-Man And The Wasp" New York Screening at Museum of Modern Art on June 27, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images,)
Photo: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images; Venturelli/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Woody Allen has landed an esteemed crop of actors to headline his next movie.

Two-time Oscar-winning performer Christoph Waltz, Elena Anaya, French actor Louis Garrel, Gina Gershon, Sergi López, and Wallace Shawn will star in the controversial filmmaker’s upcoming Spain-set project, his 51st overall project as director that will film under the production title WASP2019.

According to a press release from Mediapro — the studio which previously worked with Allen on Midnight in Paris, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona — the romantic comedy will follow a married American couple visiting Spain for the San Sebastian Film Festival, where they “get caught up in the magic of the festival, the beauty and charm of Spain and the fantasy of movies” before the woman has an affair with a French director and the man becomes entangled with a local beauty.

“This latest movie has all the ingredients to be right up there along with what we’ve become accustomed to from a director of Woody Allen’s talent: an intelligent script and a first-rate international cast,” Mediapro founding partner Jaume Roures said of the movie via a statement.

Mediapro’s announcement comes on the heels of Allen’s $68 million lawsuit against Amazon for terminating a four-picture deal and scrapping the release of his last movie, A Rainy Day in New York, due to reports of alleged sexual abuse against his by the Oscar-winning filmmaker. The suit claimed that the streaming giant knew of the “25-year-old, baseless allegation” when it signed Allen to a multiple-film contract, yet backed out of the deal after Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, resurfaced allegations of past abuse against her father in a Los Angeles Times open letter in late 2017 after previously writing about her remembered experience in a 2014 New York Times op-ed. (Rainy Day stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Hall, and Griffin Newman all donated their salary from the movie to various funds, including Time’s Up, The LGBT Center in New York, and RAINN [Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network].)

Allen has long denied Farrow’s accusation that he abused her when she was child, noting that “it was thoroughly investigated by both the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and New York State Child Welfare…. for many months and [each] independently concluded that no molestation had ever taken place” in a January 2018 statement; He previously addressed Farrow’s accusations in a written response published by The New York Times in early 2014, stressing that he “did not molest Dylan.”

Allen’s newest movie begins shooting July 10 in San Sebastian, with filming expected to wrap Aug. 23.

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