What Is Megalopolis About? Everything to Know About Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 Million Project

Francis Ford Coppola began work on his next film more than 40 years ago.

The cult director has begun research on his Roman-inspired sci-fi film Megalopolis in the late 1970s after he finished Apocalypse today. After many delays and false starts — including 300 script rewrites — Coppola’s dystopian film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024.

With an all-star cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne, fans and critics eagerly awaited Coppola’s first film in 13 years.

Megalopolis it’s even a family affair with Coppola’s sister Talia Shire, nephew Jason Schwartzman and granddaughter Romy Mars.

The much-anticipated film, which premieres in the fall of 2024, was born out of Coppola’s desire to make a film about a crumbling empire based on a moment in Roman history called the Catilinarian Conspiracy, in which Lucius Sergius Catilinus allegedly planned a coup to overthrow Marcus Tullius Cicero. he succeeded and was publicly shamed.

Megalopolis takes pieces from this story, which has been highly contested throughout history, and places it in a glamorous, vintage version of New York.

“I didn’t actually work on this script for 40 years, as I often see written, but rather collected notes and scraps for a scrapbook of things that were interesting to me,” Coppola said. Vanity Fair in May 2024. “Ultimately, after a long time, I decided on the idea of ​​a Roman epic. And later, a Roman epic set in modern America.”

The director added that he wants viewers to leave the film wondering: “Is the society we live in the only one available to us?”

Here’s everything you need to know about Francis Ford Coppola Megalopolis.

What is Megalopolis about?

Aubrey Plaza in ‘Megalopolis’.

Francis Ford Coppola/American Zoetrope

Coppola’s passion project follows three main characters as they fight for power in a declining empire called New Rome.

Cesar Catalina (The Driver) is an optimistic architect who has the power to control and stop time. He wants to create a better society, while his opposition, Mayor Franklin Cicero (Esposito), wants to maintain power by keeping the city government corrupt.

On the other hand, the politician’s daughter Julia (Emmanuel) isn’t sure how to feel or what to believe in the middle of the fight. This dynamic unfolds throughout the two-hour-and-eighteen-minute film that relies heavily on the science fiction genre and a strong historical influence.

In 2000, while working on the script for the film, Coppola shared some insights about Megalopolis‘plot.

“This script takes the view that modern New York, or rather modern America, is an uncanny counterpart to Republican Rome,” the director said The script. “I took a very famous and very mysterious event in Roman history from the period of the Republic, not the Empire, called the Conspiracy of Catiline.”

Coppola said he found inspiration in this tense moment in Roman history.

He continued: “What it’s really about are the different factions of the city… it takes the premise that the future, the shape of things to come, is determined today, by interests competing for control. The future, in other words, is now.”

Who is in Megalopolis honor?

Adam Driver attends White Noise New York Film Festival Opening Night on September 30, 2022; Shia LaBeouf on the “Megalopolis” red carpet at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2024 ; Aubrey Plaza at the Deadline Disruptors on the Croisette Party during the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2024.

Monica Schipper/Getty; Mike Marsland/WireImage; Michael Buckner/Deadline/Getty

Megalopolis it has an ensemble cast of high-profile actors who come from a variety of genres.

In addition to the main characters played by Driver, Esposito and Emmaneul, Plaza plays a TV host named Wow Platinum, LaBeouf returns to the big screen after four years as Catalina’s cousin Clodio Pulcher, and Voight plays Hamilton Crassus III, Catalina’s uncle and head of the National Bank.

Other notable cast members include Fishburne as both the narrator and Catalina’s driver, Coppola’s sister, Shire, as the architect’s mother, and Schwartzman as a member of the mayor’s corrupt crew.

Poor people actress Kathryn Hunter, America has talent winner Grace VanderWaal, Saturday night liveChloe Fineman and Hoffman also star in the film. Coppola’s granddaughter Mars even appears in Megalopolis as a reporter.

Godfather The director gave the cast a lot of credit for bringing his story to life. “We made it together – I didn’t make the film,” he said during a press conference in Cannes, per The New York Times. “When you make a movie like this, I didn’t know how to do it, let’s be honest. The film creates itself.”

Many actors have reportedly read the films over the 40 years since Coppola began working on it Megalopolisincluding Jon Hamm. The director also said Diversity considered Russell Crowe, Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage and Paul Newman for the 2001 film.

does it exist Megalopolis trailer?

‘Megalopolis’.

Francis Ford Coppola/American Zoetrope

Coppola shared a short clip of his upcoming film on his YouTube channel in early May 2024. The two-minute video shows Catalina standing on the roof of what appears to be the Chrysler Building in New York.

After Driver’s character nearly goes over the edge, he yells “time stop” alluding to his clock control powers.

Two weeks later, Coppola’s YouTube account released a shorter trailer. The video opens with the narrator saying “When does an empire die?” and shows parts of the film, including LaBeouf yelling “We’re taking back our city” and Plaza lounging in Roman garb and eating fruit.

In August 2024, Lionsgate released the first official trailer for Megalopolis only to recall it hours later after discovering that fake movie review quotes had been used.

“We sincerely apologize to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We’re sorry,” a spokesperson for the distributor told PEOPLE.

About what Coppola said Megalopolis?

The famous director worked on Megalopolis since he finished his iconic war film Apocalypse today 1979. Over the years he has talked about his passion project and even spent $120 million of his own money to Megalopolis made.

Coppola wanted to reinvent the historical moment of the Catilinarian Conspiracy for his next film.

“In history, Catiline lost and was killed, and Cicero survived. But since a survivor tells the story, I wondered what if what Catiline had in mind for his new society was a realignment of those in power, and whether that could even be ‘visionary’ and ‘good’, while Cicero might have been to be ‘reactionary’ and ‘bad’,” he said Vanity Fair in May 2024.

In addition to the historical inspiration for the film, Coppola also cited a film written by HG Wells, Things to comeas an important influence on Megalopolis.

“This … classic is about building the world of tomorrow and has always followed me, first as the ‘boy scientist’ that I was, and later as a director,” he said.

Will cinemas include Megalopolis‘ fourth wall viral scene?

Grace VanderWaal, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Francis Ford Coppola, Romy Croquet Mars, Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel on the “Megalopolis” red carpet at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2024.

Samir Hussein/WireImage

One of the busiest moments of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival was during the premiere of the film Megalopolis when the actor took the stage in front of the screen and got involved with Driver’s character in the film.

Coppola called this selection “live cinema within a cinema” in the description Megalopolis‘ trailer on YouTube.

Since the film has not yet been bought by a wide distributor, it is not certain whether this 4D element will be or not Megalopolis will happen in cinemas worldwide, but its French distributor, Le Pacte, has announced that they will try.

“We’re definitely going to do a lot of these performances,” said company president Jean Labadie Deadline in May 2024. “With four screenings a day in many theaters, it won’t be easy to do that for every screening.”

When will Megalopolis be released?

‘Megalopolis’.

Francis Ford Coppola/American Zoetrope

Megalopolis premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2024, and was picked up by Lionsgate as an international distributor in June 2024.

The film will premiere in IMAX on September 27, 2024.

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Source: HIS Education