Megalopolis is an upcoming American epic science fiction drama film written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Set in a metropolis following a devastating disaster, the film features an ensemble cast, including Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, Talia Shire, Dustin Hoffman, D. B. Sweeney, James Remar and Chloe Fineman.
Megalopolis | |
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Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
Written by | Francis Ford Coppola |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Mihai Mălaimare Jr.[1] |
Edited by | Glen Scantlebury[2] |
Music by | Osvaldo Golijov[3] |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $120 million[4] |
A longtime passion project for Coppola, who first conceived the film in 1979 and actively started developing it in 1983, it underwent significant delays and various cancellations over the years, until Coppola revived the project in 2019 by spending $120 million of his own money on the film, which was filmed from November 2022 to March 2023; it is Coppola's first directorial effort since 2011's Twixt, marking his longest gap between films.
The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it is set to premiere on May 17, 2024.
An accident causes the destruction of a New York City-like metropolis that is decaying anyway brings clashing visions of the future. On one side is the ambitious architectural idealist Cesar. On the other is his sworn enemy, city Mayor Frank Cicero. The debate becomes whether to embrace the future and build a utopia with renewable materials, or take a business-as-usual rebuild strategy, replete with concrete, corruption and power brokering at the expense of a restless underclass. In between their struggle is the mayor's socialite daughter Julia, a restless young woman who grew up around power and tires of being a tabloid fixture looking for meaning in her life.[5]
Francis Ford Coppola conceived the idea for Megalopolis during the filming of Apocalypse Now (1979); sound designer Richard Beggs described Coppola's vision as a "gigantic opera, shown over four nights in some place as close as possible to the geographical center of the United States – and people would come from all over, as they do to Bayreuth".[8]: 181 Coppola devoted the beginning of 1983 to write the screenplay, assembling four hundred pages of notes and script fragments in two months.[9]: 333 In mid-1983, he described the plot as taking place in one day in New York City with Catiline Rome as a backdrop, similar to how James Joyce's Ulysses used Homer in the context of modern Dublin.[10]: 74 [11]: 215 Biographer Michael Schumacher recalled the filmmaker's intentions in 1989 to endeavor on a film, which "sounded much like what he had in store for Megalopolis," that was "so big and complicated that it would seem impossible," to be shot in Cinecittà, a large film studio in Rome, Italy, where production designer Dean Tavoularis and his design team had built offices and an art studio for drafters to storyboard the film.[9]: 409–410 [12]: 234 The Hollywood Reporter described the story as "swing[ing] from the past to the present," merging "the images of Rome ... with the New York City of today".[9]: 410
Following the 1990–91 film awards season for The Godfather Part III (1990), Coppola's film production company, American Zoetrope, announced several projects in development, including plans to film Megalopolis in 1991, despite lacking a finished script.[9]: 436 However, the film was postponed to "no earlier than 1996" after Coppola found himself prioritizing other projects,[9]: 444 including Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Jack (1996), and The Rainmaker (1997), to get out of debt accumulated from One from the Heart (1982) and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and fund Megalopolis.[13]: 110 [14] In 2001, he described the film as setting the characters of the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern New York: "In many ways what it's really about is a metaphor—because if you walk around New York and look around, you could make Rome there," adding: "Ultimately what's at stake is the future, because it takes the premise that the future, the shape of things to come, is being determined today, by the interests that are vying for control ... we already know what happened to Rome. Rome became a fascist Empire. Is that what we're going to become?"[15]
Jim Steranko, who previously created production illustrations for Bram Stoker's Dracula, produced concept art for Megalopolis at Coppola's behest, described in James Romberger's master's thesis as "expansive, elaborate and carefully rendered pencil or charcoal halftone architectural drawings of huge buildings and urban plazas that appeared to mix ancient Roman, art deco and speculative sci-fi stylizations".[16]: 54 By 2001, Coppola began holding table reads with actors, including Nicolas Cage (Coppola's nephew), Russell Crowe, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edie Falco, James Gandolfini, Paul Newman, Kevin Spacey, and Uma Thurman.[17] Other actors considered for roles included Matt Dillon and Parker Posey,[18]: 262 though Coppola dispelled rumors that he had written a part specifically for Warren Beatty.[19] Locations proposed for the film included Montreal and New York, with a budget pitched at $50–70 million, and "no more than $80 [million]".[18]: 263 [19][20] That year, he also recorded roughly 30 hours of second unit footage of New York City with Ron Fricke, all of which he discarded after the September 11 attacks, including more footage he shot two weeks after, before declaring, in October, his plans to rewrite the script.[18]: 263 [20] In 2002, Coppola announced that his next project as a director would be Megalopolis and shot material for the film on high-definition video that George Lucas described as "wide shots of cities with incredible detail at magic hour and all kinds of available-light material".[21][18]: 263 He also disclosed that sixty to seventy hours of second unit footage had been shot in Manhattan and his intent to self-finance the film which, partially inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Alexander Korda's Things to Come (1936), would utilize "some extraordinary new technology".[22][23][24]: xv [25]: 82
However, the project was abandoned soon after. The success of his winery and resort company meant Coppola could produce the film with his own money, which a close friend of his, Wendy Doniger, said "paralyzed him": "He had no excuse this time if the film was no good. What froze him was having the power to do exactly what he wanted so that his soul was on the line."[26] To help, she gave him books that she deemed thematically relevant, including Mircea Eliade's Youth Without Youth (1976), a novella about a 70-year-old man struggling to complete an ambitious project. Coppola then decided to shelve Megalopolis to self-finance a small-scale adaptation of the book, with the intent of it being "the opposite of Megalopolis".[25]: 85 [26] In 2006, Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, who composed the music for Youth Without Youth, said Coppola had asked him to write a symphony for Megalopolis that would have "dictated the rhythm of the film".[27] In 2007, Coppola admitted that 9/11 "made it really pretty tough ... a movie about the aspiration of utopia with New York as a main character and then all of a sudden you couldn't write about New York without just dealing with what happened and the implications of what happened. The world was attacked and I didn't know how to try to do with that. I tried".[14] In 2009, in regards to the likelihood of revisiting the film, he said: "I feel pleased to have written something ... Someday, I'll read what I had on Megalopolis and maybe I'll think different of it, but it's also a movie that costs a lot of money to make and there's not a patron out there. You see what the studios are making right now."[28]
Coppola announced his return to the project in April 2019,[29] having approached Jude Law and Shia LaBeouf for lead roles.[30][31] He reportedly spent $120 million of his own money and sold a "significant piece of his wine empire" to produce the film.[32] By August 2021, discussions with actors to star in the film had begun; James Caan was set to star while Oscar Isaac, Forest Whitaker, Cate Blanchett, Jon Voight, Zendaya, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jessica Lange were in various stages of negotiations.[33] By March 2022, Talia Shire (Coppola's sister) expressed her interest in joining the cast,[34] and Isaac was reported to have passed on the project.[35] By May, the budget was reported to be under $100 million,[36] while Whitaker and Voight were confirmed for the cast, with Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Laurence Fishburne added.[36] On July 6, Caan, who was still in negotiations for the film,[37] died.[38]
Pre-production had begun by mid-July 2022, with Mihai Mălaimare Jr. serving as cinematographer.[39] In August, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman (Coppola's nephew), Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, and James Remar joined the cast, with Shire and LaBeouf confirmed to be part of the cast.[39][40][41] Chloe Fineman, Madeleine Gardella, Isabelle Kusman, D. B. Sweeney, Bailey Ives, and Dustin Hoffman would be added in October.[42] In January 2023, Giancarlo Esposito was added to the cast.[43]
In a series of Instagram posts in July 2023, Coppola shared a list of books that the film had been heavily influenced by, including Bullshit Jobs (2018), The Dawn of Everything (2021), and Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011) by anthropologist David Graeber; The Chalice and the Blade (1987) by sociologist Riane Eisler; The Glass Bead Game (1943) by Hermann Hesse; The Origins of Political Order (2011) by Francis Fukuyama; The Swerve (2011) by Stephen Greenblatt; and The War Lovers (2010) by Evan Thomas.[44]
Principal photography began at Trilith Studios in Georgia on November 1, 2022,[45] with set photos of LaBeouf and Emmanuel filming in Atlanta published on November 8,[46] and was due to finish in March 2023.[47] The film was originally shot using OSVP technology at Prysm Stage, Trilith Studios,[48] but "as the challenges and costs of that approach have mounted, the production is attempting to pivot to a less costly, more traditional greenscreen approach".[4] In reference to ancient Rome, several male actors had Caesar cuts.[49]
By January 2023, the film was halfway into filming when reports indicated the budget ballooned higher than its original $120 million,[4] which journalists compared to the production issues of Coppola's Apocalypse Now.[4][50][51][52] Due to the reported "unstable filming environment", several crew members exited the film, including production designer Beth Mickle, art director David Scott, and visual effects supervisor Mark Russell, along with the rest of the visual effects team.[4] Coppola and Driver contested the report, saying that while there was some turnover in crew, the production was on schedule, on budget, and going smoothly.[53] At the same time, filmmaker Mike Figgis directed a behind-the-scenes documentary on the production of Megalopolis.[54] The documentary will accompany the film's release and will feature interviews with George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg.[55] Driver finished filming his part in early March.[56] Filming wrapped on March 30, 2023.[57]
In August 2023, during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, the film received an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA, possibly for re-shoots.[58][59]
The film is scheduled to premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2024.[5]
Coppola saw the film in full for the first time on an IMAX screen at the company's headquarters in Playa Vista, Los Angeles. The film used camera technology for certain scenes that could cover an entire IMAX screen.[49] On March 28, 2024, a private screening of the film was presented to distributors at the Universal CityWalk IMAX Theater in Hollywood.[6]
Coppola and his longtime attorney Barry Hirsch, a producer on the film, expressed that they would not make a final decision where to debut the film until a distribution partner was secured and a firm rollout plan was put in place.[6]
The "muted" response to the first screening made securing a distributor difficult for the film as studios weighed the return on investment, as Coppola expected a studio to commit to a print-and-advertising (P&A) campaign of $80–100 million. A distribution veteran told The Hollywood Reporter: "I find it hard to believe any distributor would put up cash money and stay in first position to recoup the P&A as well as their distribution fee. If [Coppola] is willing to put up the P&A or backstop the spend, I think there would be a lot more interested parties."[49] In April 2024, the film secured a spot to premiere in competition at that year's Cannes Film Festival on May 17.[5] Addressing the pending distribution plans, Cannes lineup festival director Thierry Frémaux said that Coppola is "an artist", adding: "He made his film with his own money. Then he finished this film. He showed it to us and to some other people in the U.S., and he's thinking about the strategy of the film ... We'll see. But of course, I'm not the one who is able to talk about that."[60]
On April 23, 2024, French magazine Le Point reported that Paris-based distributor Le Pacte had acquired French distribution rights to the film in France.[61][62][63] When contacted by Deadline Hollywood for comment, Le Pacte's CEO Jean Labadie replied: "We don't have the film yet. Nothing is signed."[64] Le Point also confirmed that Le Pacte has set a late September release for the film in France.[61]
In an interview with GQ in 2022, Coppola gave more insight, elaborating that the film is "a love story". He further explained: "A woman is divided between loyalties to two men. But not only two men. Each man comes with a philosophical principle. One is her father who raised her, who taught her Latin on his lap and is devoted to a much more classical view of society, the Marcus Aurelius kind of view. The other one, who is the lover, is the enemy of the father but is dedicated to a much more progressive 'Let's leap into the future, let's leap over all of this garbage that has contaminated humanity for 10,000 years. Let's find what we really are, which are an enlightened, friendly, joyous species'."[32]
At the Ischia Global Film & Music Festival in July 2023, Figgis, who met Coppola through Cage, gave additional details as to what to expect when it comes to the film and the behind-the-scenes documentary. He described the film as "Julius Caesar meets Blade Runner", saying: "It is a futuristic film, set in a New York that will be called New Rome; at its center an architect who wants to rebuild the utopian metropolis after a disaster. It's very philosophical, but also veers towards political satire. Francis is obsessed with Roman history, its roots. I will document everything, from our chats to the long waits on the huge set and also the well-known problems that occurred during production, including layoffs, a story emphasized by the press."[55]
After the early screening for buyers and distributors, the film was considered divisive while some were mixed,[65] though others were primarily of general bewilderment.[66] Deadline Hollywood's Mike Fleming Jr. wrote the film is "crackling with ideas that fuse the past with the future, with an epic and highly visual fable that plays perfectly on an IMAX screen".[6] The film was further described as a mix of Ayn Rand, Metropolis, and Caligula (1979),[66] and about a civilization teetering on a "precarious ledge, devouring itself in a whirl of unchecked greed, self-absorption, and political propaganda".[67]
Furthermore, many attendees praised Shia LaBeouf's performance as one of the antagonists.[49] Fellow director Gregory Nava called it "a visionary masterpiece", complimenting the acting of LaBeouf and Giancarlo Esposito as "particularly sterling", adding: "It's an unbelievable, astonishing film, and [Coppola] is pushing the boundaries of cinema ... [Coppola] has used visual effects, and things that before have simply been limited to superhero movies, in a way to evoke other kinds of emotions."[68]
Coppola compared the early reception to Megalopolis to the first reactions to Apocalypse Now, stating: "This is exactly what happened with Apocalypse Now 40 years ago. There were very contradicting views expressed, but the audience never stopped going to see the film, and to this day Apocalypse Now is still in very profitable distribution. I am sure this will be the same situation with Megalopolis. It will stand the test of time."[68]
Award / Film Festival | Category | Date of ceremony | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref |
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Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | May 14–25, 2024 | Francis Ford Coppola | Pending | [69] |