Megalopolis filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola said the upcoming epic purposefully cast actors who were “canceled” because he didn’t want his film to be written off as “some woke Hollywood production.” Though the road to the film’s Sept. 27 release by Lionsgate has not been estranged from controversy — from divisive critical opinion at the Cannes premiere in May to reports of on-set departmental disagreements — Coppola told Rolling Stone in a new interview that he hopes it will commence a conversation.
“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” the Apocalypse Now director said. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are arch conservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive.
But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought.” The $120 million film stars Adam Driver as an ambitious, future-facing architect Cesar Catilina who aims to turn a glittering city into a utopia, with the help of his inventive new material called megalon and a cast of less-than-morally-upright characters.
The sprawling narrative, which Coppola modeled after a Roman epic and the roots of which have been gestating for four decades, also features Giancarlo Esposito and Nathalie Emmanuel as leads. However, it’s the casting of supporting actors like Shia LaBeouf , Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman that has raised eyeb.