Woody Allen Lawsuit Settled

A trial in which Woody Allen accused former friends and producers Jean Doumanian and Jacqui Safra of cheating him out of $12 million ended Tuesday with a settlement of the comic's lawsuit against them.

Lawyers refused to reveal the settlement's terms, and at their request state Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman agreed to keep them confidential.

The settlement came on the trial's ninth day, during which the lawyers went in and out of the judge's offices during courtroom recesses. Shortly before 4:30 p.m., the lawyers came out shaking hands.

Allen's lawyer, Michael Zweig, issued a joint statement:

"The parties have reached a business resolution of the dispute. The case is over. On the part the plaintiff, we are as happy as the defendants are to have reached a business resolution of the dispute."

To which Doumanian added, "The defendants are Jean Doumanian and Jacqui Safra." Asked if she thought she and Allen could patch things up, she raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders without saying anything.

In May 2001, Allen sued Doumanian, his close friend for more than 30 years, along wtih Safra and their production company, Sweetland, to get the money he said he was owed for eight movies that they made together.

The eight movies are "Bullets over Broadway," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Everyone Says I Love You," "Deconstructing Harry," "Wild Man Blues," "Celebrity," "Sweet and Lowdown" and "Small Time Crooks."

Allen said that it would have been unthinkable two years ago for him to sue Doumanian, but "it was too much money to just cavalierly walk away."

Allen, 66, testified that he even suggested calling in a rabbi to mediate the dispute and to get them off the "collision course" they were on.

Doumanian's lawyer, Peter Parcher, told the jury in opening statements that his client had been a "heroine" who rescued Allen's movie career.

Parcher said TriStar Pictures dumped Allen "without a boo-hoo" after the scandal over his affair with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow, Allen's lover at the time. Previn is now Allen's wife.

Doumanian testified that she considered Allen ungrateful. Safra, her boyfriend, who is from a wealthy banking family, said he and Doumanian backed Allen financially because they wanted to help "a friend in need."

Allen testified that his affair with Previn had nothing to do with his leaving TriStar. He also said Doumanian and Safra approached him -- not the other way around as they testified, to make movies together.

The dispute centered on Allen's contract for his first three movies with Doumanian and Safra and the way they calculated the films' profits.

The deal gave Allen a $1.5 million fee for his first picture and $2.5 million for each subsequent film. He was supposed to share profits 50-50 with Sweetland from all the movies.

The contract cross-collateralized the first three movies, meaning that Sweetland pooled money from the winners and the losers to determine whether there was a profit.

Parcher said that because Allen and his backers agreed to let terms of the first contract apply to the latter five movies, all eight films are subject to cross-collateralization. Allen disagreed.

Allen said he would never have agreed to cross-collateralization of all of his films after his first contract with Sweetland. Under such a deal, "I could make movies until I was 90 years old and never see a dime," he said.