Plaintiff Woody Allen Makes Easiest $5 Million of His Career

As anticlimaxes go, it rivals the most significant of Woody Allen's 40-year-plus film career: The morning that a judge was to hear his case arguing that American Apparel had both violated privacy laws and damaged his reputation with a 2008 billboard campaign, he settled with the racy clothing retailer for $5 million. Still, even if the amount totaled half the damages Allen had originally sued for, it's hard to look down on the biggest opening-day gross of his life.

"I am told the settlement of five million dollars I am being paid is the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law," Allen told reporters outside the Manhattan federal court, according to Reuters. Not bad for a day's work -- or at least a few months' work, anyway, resisting the thick, dark mud cast his way by American Apparel lawyers who initially argued that Allen had little reputation left to salvage following the scandal involving his stepdaughter and current wife Soon-Yi Previn.

The company's founder, Dov Charney, took a higher road this afternoon in a statement on his Web site, noting that it was just his insurance company (which paid the seven-figure settlement) that insisted they avoid a lengthy, potentially groundbreaking trial. "I appreciate Woody Allen's work, but I also appreciate the first amendment," Charney wrote. "Let's not forget that Woody Allen himself has referenced many public figures over the course of his long career, often for the purpose of parody, such as Fidel Castro in the movie Bananas." Not only that, but does Larry David need insurance to defend his poor-man's Woody in the forthcoming Whatever Works? This could be a slipperier slope than it looks.

· American Apparel Settles Lawsuit With Woody Allen [City Room/NYT]

· A Statement from Dov Charney about the Woody Allen Case [American Apparel]