Almost 50 years later, Megalopolis is finally here. The epic sci-fi drama film's trailer was released on Aug. 21, marking the return of one of the most celebrated directors in Hollywood.
However, it's a project that has been coming for a very, very long time. Megalopolis, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola , is a longtime passion project that's had quite the journey to produce. It takes place in a crumbling metropolis called New Rome.
The movie features a star-studded ensemble cast, including Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, an ambitious architect who can control time. Giancarlo Esposito is Mayor Franklyn Cicero, Cesar's nemesis and the corrupt mayor of New Rome. Nathalie Emmanuel is Julia Cicero, Mayor Franklyn's aristocratic daughter, and Cesar's love interest.
Aubrey Plaza is Wow Platinum, a TV news personality who is in love with Cesar. Shia LaBeouf is Clodio Pulcher, Cesar's cousin who is also in love with Julia. And cinematic heavyweights Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Laurence Fishburne, and Dustin Hoffman are also part of the stacked cast.
The epic sci-fi drama metaphorically parallels the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC, in which Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to overthrow the Roman consuls Gaius Antonius Hybrida and Marcus Tullius Cicero. Coppola had the idea for this film in 1977 and began developing the script in the early '80s. The film was initially set to be filmed in 1989 but was shelved after Coppola prioritized other projects, such as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and The Rainmaker (1997).
He would return to Megalopolis in 2001, but the film was again abandoned because its themes were too closely related to the 9/11 attacks. In 2019, Coppola announced that he would give Megalopolis another shot and even sold a portion of Francis Ford Coppola Winery to help finance the film. For the next few years, the film would be involved in a series of alleged conflicts on set, which Coppola and some actors have disputed.
For instance, key crew members were replaced mid-production, and Coppola was accused of problematic on-set behavior. In a video obtained by Variety , the director is shown engaging in unprofessional behavior toward crew members. The film's road to completion, currently at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, is a story reminiscent of past Coppola productions.
Other films that would later become celebrated classics were also doubted in their earliest days, and based on the trailer, he's well aware of this. Before any actors appear on screen, the Megalopolis trailer seemingly calls out critics of his past films, including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker's Dracula . From this opening alone, the internet was talking in anticipation of what could be one of the year's biggest films.
Here's what some people are saying: It takes real guts for a filmmaker to put out those negative reviews from early screenings to promote their movie ahead of its public release. Definitely one of the ways to promote a movie. One person said, "The fact that Francis Ford Coppola does all the marketing himself, from his own money and this was the best trailer that he could come up with those insane bad reviews that he got for his past movies is absolutely crazy.
Respect the king right there, no one does it like him!" this kinda goes hard the critics at the beginning of the megalopolis trailer pic.twitter.com/wMXt1FTYfI However, it should be noted that while the trailer opens with comments about Coppola's past films from renowned critics, none of the quotes actually appear in the cited reviews mentioned, according to Variety .
Owen Gleiberman, cited in the trailer for calling Bram Stoker's Dracula "A beautiful mess," responded. “Even if you’re one of those people who don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths. Then again, the trivial scandal of all this is that the whole ‘Megalopolis’ trailer is built on a false narrative.
" Following the discovery, Lionsgate pulled the Megalopolis trailer offline due to the made-up critic quotes and apologized. “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,'” a spokesperson said, according to Variety . “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process.
We screwed up. We are sorry.” If anything, Megalopolis is unapologetically Francis Ford Coppola's magnum opus, and it'll be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Megalopolis will arrive in theaters on Sept. 27, 2024..
