Woody Allen didn't choose Spain as the setting for his new movie. Spain chose him.

Allen only had a vague idea for the premise of what would become Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- two women on summer vacation in Europe -- when he received a call from the Spanish film distribution company Mediapro offering to finance his next film if he shot it in Barcelona.

And Allen, who had previously followed the money to England, making his last three films (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream) there in exchange for financing, agreed.

''I had spent time in Barcelona and liked it a lot, and my wife liked the idea of moving there for seven months, so I figured the idea would work,'' Allen says from New York. ``When I got to actually writing the movie and putting pencil to paper, all the ramifications of setting the movie there followed very naturally.''

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which opens Friday, follows Allen's original idea of two best friends -- the soon-to-be-married Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and college student Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) -- who spend a summer in Barcelona. There, they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a studly painter who propositions the women and invites them to spend the weekend with him in the nearby town of Oviedo.

Vicky balks, Cristina melts, and thus begins an amusingly tangled game of sexual musical chairs that eventually widens to include Juan's ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), who might be certifiably insane and once tried to kill him but is clearly still in love with the womanizing artist.

CASTING CALLS

The casting of Bardem and Cruz happened before he won an Academy Award for playing the stone-faced killer in No Country For Old Men, and she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Pedro Almodovar's Volver. But their presence in the film -- the first time the two huge Spanish stars have acted together since 1992's Jamon, Jamon -- has brought Vicky Cristina Barcelona much more attention than Allen's films usually capture today. The fact that the pair became a real-life couple after filming was completed hasn't hurt, either.

Like the financiers, Cruz approached Allen when the news broke he'd be making his next film in Spain.

''I had never seen Penelope until Volver,'' Allen says. 'I thought `My God, she's just wonderful, sexy and full of screen charisma.' I was in New York when she called me and said she was in town and wanted to meet me. She came and chatted for five minutes and said she knew I was doing a film in Spain, and she'd like to participate. I said 'Great to know. I haven't started writing yet, but I'm sure it could work out.' It all fell into place very comfortably.''

Allen is known for casting actors after the briefest of meetings -- sometimes without meeting them at all -- and then tailoring their parts for them. The raven-haired hellcat Maria Elena is a perfect match for Cruz, who displays an intensity and fiery temperament she has not previously shown in an English-language movie.

''I've heard stories from other actors who he's cast after just being in the room with them for 15 seconds,'' Cruz says from New York. ``He's very wise at reading energy and people and knowing what an actor can do just from standing next to them. It's amazing that he gives us so much trust. He saw Volver, and he only needed to meet me in person for a minute and a half. That's all he needed to know.''

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