The movie studio Lionsgate says it “screwed up” after fabricating critics’ quotes in a recent trailer for the upcoming Francis Ford Coppola film, “Megalopolis.” “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a studio spokesperson said in a statement to TODAY.com.
“We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and (production company) American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.
” Out in September, "Megalopolis" stars a large ensemble cast, including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne and more. Coppola called the movie, which had a budget of $120 million, a "Roman epic set in modern America" in an interview with . The “Megalopolis” trailer in question, which has been pulled by Lionsgate but is still circulating via third-party accounts on , features a slew of quotes from critics slamming some of Coppola’s most beloved past films, including “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
” The problem? These quotes from critics do not appear to exist. Speculation over the quotes’ veracity began circulating online soon after the trailer’s release, after film critic Bilge Ebiri revealed in a piece for that the quotes, which were attributed to renowned critics including the late Roger Ebert, appeared to be completely fabricated. “What’s the intention here?” Ebiri wrote.
“Did the people who wrote and cut this trailer just assume that nobody would pay attention to the truthfulness of these quotes, since we live in a made-up digital world where showing any curiosity about anything from the past is seen as a character flaw? Did they do it to see which outlets would just accept these quotes at face value?” Read on to learn more about the controversy around the use of apparently fake quotes in the “Megalopolis” trailer. The now-pulled trailer for “Megalopolis” opens with the words spoken in voiceover, “True genius is often misunderstood.” The trailer then moves through three of Coppola’s most notable films — 1972’s “The Godfather,” 1979’s “Apocalypse Now” and 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” — and features snippets of supposed quotes from critics bashing each film.
“A sloppy self-indulgent movie,” reads one quote attributed to the late critic Andrew Sarris from “The Village Voice.” The trailer also suggests that Sarris said the film “doesn’t know what it wants to be.” However, neither of these quotes are found in Sarris’ actual A quote from the late film critic Pauline Kael claiming “The Godfather” is “diminished by its artiness” also seems to be fabricated, as it does not appear at all in her in The New Yorker.
Multiple quotes cited by the trailer about “Apocalypse Now” seem to be made up, too. The late critic Vincent Canby never called the film “hollow at the core” in his 1979 review in The New York Times and, as Vulture reported, the critic Rex Reed did not call the movie “an epic piece of trash.” Likewise, Ebert did not call “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” a “triumph of style over substance” in his of the film.
A similar phrase did appear in his ; Ebert called that film “a triumph of design over story, style over substance.” Critic Owen Gleiberman also confirmed that he never actually called “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a beautiful mess.” “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,” Gleiberman told this week. “Critics loved ‘The Godfather.’ And though ‘Apocalypse Now’ was divisive, it received a lot of crucial critical support,” he continued.
“As far as me calling ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ ‘a beautiful mess,’ I only wish I’d said that! Regarding that film, it now sounds kind.” Lindsay Lowe has been a regular contributor to TODAY.com since 2016, covering pop culture, style, home and other lifestyle topics.
She is also working on her first novel, a domestic drama set in rural Regency England..
