Amazon has bought the rights to Woody Allen’s next film, but will release it in US cinemas before it premieres the title on the company’s Amazon Prime streaming service, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

In the latest sign the company is keen to abide by the longstanding “theatrical window” that separates big-screen releases from home video competition, Amazon Studios announced that the untitled 1930s-set comedy would receive a nationwide release in multiplexes this summer before arriving on Prime once it has finished its run. The film’s small-screen release will be at least three months after its last screening in cinemas, in a move which appears designed to assuage cinema chains.

Allen’s film, shot in New York and Los Angeles last summer, stars Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll and Ken Stott. The veteran film-maker has an ongoing relationship with Amazon, with whom he is also working on an untitled TV series starring himself, Elaine May and Miley Cyrus. However, Sony Pictures Classics released the film-maker’s last seven films in the US, so the shift to Amazon marks a significant departure.

“Like all beginning relationships, there is much hope, mutual affection and genuine goodwill – the lawsuits come later,” Allen said in a statement. Amazon Studios head Roy Price added: “Woody Allen is a brilliant film-maker. We’re so proud to be in business with him for both his next film and his first ever TV series.”

Amazon appears to be taking a completely different approach to Netflix, by behaving more like a traditional studio than its streaming rival. Amazon is also releasing its big Sundance film festival purchase, Manchester By the Sea, in cinemas ahead of a planned Oscars run in 2016. It also has the US rights for a streaming release. In contrast, Netflix has either kept its film purchases exclusive to its streaming service, as with its four-movie deal with Adam Sandler, or released them in selected cinemas only, when it is eyeing an awards-season run, as with the Screen Actors Guild awards-winning Beasts of No Nation.

In a further sign of strange times for streaming, Netflix’s landmark 2016 release Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny looks set to debut on the streaming service on 26 February without being screened for critics, and without its originally planned Imax release.



When Netflix purchased Yuen Woo-ping’s film in September 2014, it was widely reported that the film would debut on the streaming service on the same day it arrived on Imax screens worldwide. However, the Guardian understands the martial-arts sequel will no longer be available to view in cinemas. It is not clear whether a boycott threat by US chains AMC, Cinemark, Regal and Carmike, which together own more than half the US’s 400 Imax screens, led to the U-turn from the streaming service.

The original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains the most financially successful foreign-language film in US box-office history, with $128m in receipts, and Netflix had been expected to mount a huge PR push for the sequel. However, the service seems not to be holding critics’ screenings for Sword of Destiny, suggesting the film may be set for an unexpectedly muted release.