Exchanging pitchforks and torches for nasty comments and negative poll results, Barcelona residents want to drive Woody Allen out of town after their city and regional governments pledged to foot 10% of the budget for his latest flick, a rumored love triangle treatment called (for now) “The Barcelona Project.” In case you’re curious, that’s 1.5 million euros of taxpayer money. In this instance, we figure bad publicity might actually be worse than no publicity:

Seventy-five percent of Catalans polled by the Catalan daily newspaper El Periodico thought the public investment was “excessive”. One local director said: “Along comes Woody Allen with all his money and success and they help him? I could make five films with his budget.”

Regardless of whether those films would suck, Allen hoped to diffuse local tension by calling his project “a love letter to Barcelona, and from Barcelona to the world.” Meaning, you’ll watch anyway because Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johanssen in a cat fight is the fantasy of every man, woman, and child on this planet.

Allen film funding angers Spanish [BBC News]
Image [Toni Albir / EFE]