All the Megalopolis film drama explained after that train wreck trailer

The drama behind this film would have made for a far juicier story

4 months ago

The trailer for a new blockbuster drama film Megalopolis has been dramatically taken down – after viewers noticed most of the reviews in it had been made up.

The trailer included a montage of negative reviews of the director Francis Ford Coppola’s previous films which then turned out to be successes. The point the trailer seemed to be trying to make was that Megalopolis would also turn out to be massively successful, despite its mixed critical reception so far.

Reviews in the trailer were actually made up
(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

This was somewhat undermined by how most of the reviews in the trailer had been made up. It also included quotes from critics who have been dead for years.

Lionsgate, the distribution partner responsible for the trailer, quickly took it down. Their statement said: “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis. 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.”

Vincent Canby did slate this film but he never used the phrase ‘hollow at the core’
(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

This very weird turn of events is only the latest bit of drama behind the scenes of a film that has been in the works for four decades. The troubled production process has involved marijuana, nepo babies and kissing the extras. Seriously, some of this stuff makes the whole It Ends With Us saga look tame.

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What the hell is this film? Is the production cursed? How do you even pronounce “Megalopolis”? We shall explain all.

What actually is this film?

Megalopolis is a science fiction epic that will come out in September. It’s the passion project of Francis Ford Coppola – the 84-year-old director of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and various other famous films that your parents probably made you watch.

The massive ensemble cast consists of actual famous people – Adam Driver, Audrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Nathalie Emmanuel – and Coppola’s own family members.

Adam Driver brandishes a lightsabre-type implement in the trailer for Megalopolis
(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

The film is supposedly a retelling of the Catiline conspiracy (which is one of the most boring and overblown bits of Roman history) in a made-up modern American city.

Coppola has said he took inspiration from things as broad as *takes deep breath* Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Wall Street Crash, Roman mosaics, James Joyce’s Ulysses, the art deco movement, the city of New York, and the urban planning industry.

If that sounds like a lot to pack into one film, you’re not wrong. The runtime is 138 minutes.

The name just means “big city”, which is not an exciting of a title as “Megalopolis”, but sure is easier to say.

Where did this film come from?

Megalopolis has been Coppola’s extremely long term passion project. He’s been working on the film for twice the age of the average The Tab reader. He had the idea after Apocalypse Now came out in 1979, and wrote parts of a script in the 1980s.

In 2001, a load of celebrities auditioned for the leading roles, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Russell Crow, Robert De Niro and Nicolas Cage (who is Coppola’s nephew).

That’s, like, every white straight man who was famous in 2001.

After trying for two decades to find a studio to finance this film, Coppola decided that the whole film industry was fundamentally broken and he was going to finance the film himself. He told The Guardian in 2002 that Hollywood was “not the movie business, it’s the money business.

“They’re doing what they are told to do. Unfortunately, many of them have had three or four wives and so they need to make a lot of money to support their lifestyles… they’re caught up in this impotency.

“No one will allow me to make the film that I wish to make.”

The elaborate set pieces in the trailer for Megalopolis do not look cheap
(Credit: Lionsgate via Youtube)

Coppola has made about $400 million (£305 million) from his movies, Californian wineries, real estate ventures, a lifestyle brand called Francis Ford Coppola Presents and a cannabis company called The Grower’s Series.

Coppola paused production and focused instead on his business ventures.

Second time lucky?

17 years after that drama, Coppola explained the day before his 80th birthday that he would be returning to Megalopolis.

Deadline reported that a load of celebrities where in various stages of negotiations to be in it, including Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Cate Blanchett and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Aubrey Plaza is one of the many, many celebs in Megalopolis(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

Aubrey Plaza is one of the many, many celebs involved with Megalopolis
(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

Note: none of these people ended up actually agreeing to be in the film. Can’t say I blame them.

Instead, roles went to Talia Shire (Francis Ford Coppola’s sister) and Jason Schwartzman (Talia Shire’s son and so Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew). I wonder how they got those auditions.

Coppola sold off part of his wineries to raise the $120 million (£91 million) needed to fund the film. Production was delayed yet again because of the pandemic.

The crew called the production ‘a train wreck’

The actual production of the film was filled with drama too. Coppola bought this hotel for the cast and his family (among whom there is quite a bit of overlap) to stay in during filming.

Some of the cast and crew have spoken out about Coppola’s more, er, unconventional artistic methods. One crew member told The Guardian that Coppola “would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana … and hours and hours would go by without anything being filmed. And the crew and the cast would all stand around and wait… Pretty much every day, we’d just walk away shaking our heads wondering what we’d just spent the last 12 hours doing.”

I’ve watched the trailer five times now and I still can’t figure out what’s going on here.
(Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

Another crew member described the experience as, “like watching a train wreck unfold day after day, week after week.”

Loads of the crew didn’t stick around for the whole production. The production designer quit. As filming dragged on and the costs skyrocketed, Coppola fired one of the art directors, then his whole department walked out.

Coppola fired most of the visual effects team in October 2022. The visual effects supervisor, Mark Russell, then resigned. Coppola hired his own nephew Jesse James Chisholm to replace him.

The director kissed young female extras

Three weeks ago, Variety published two videos of the 85-year-old director milling through a crowd of young female extras in party outfits and kissing them.

Nathalie Emmanuel riding a unicorn in the middle of the party scene that Coppola appears to have kissed extras from (Credit: Lionsgate via YouTube)

The call sheet for this party sheet said that the actresses were “cleared for topless nudity”. Sources told Variety that Coppola then said on a microphone to the 200 crew members in the room, “Sorry, if I come up to you and kiss you. Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”

Is Megalopolis even any good?

Surely, after decades of drama and hundreds of millions of dollars, the actual film Megalopolis would be good, right? Er….

In March 2024, Coppola hosted a special screening of the film for studio executives, hoping to strike deals with distribution companies. Nothing came from it straight away.

More drama went down when Megalopolis premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. At the screenings, an actor walked in front of the audience and spoke, so it looked like the actor was having a conversation with Adam Driver’s conversation on the screen. It is unclear what that scene will look like if there wasn’t a paid actor at every single cinema screening to recite those lines. Will Adam Driver just say half a conversation?

Critics’ responses to the film so far has been, er, somewhat mixed. Some critics have hyped it up as an artistic masterpiece, but others are a little less convinced. Vulture called it “a work of absolute madness”. The Times described it as “a head-wrecking abomination.”

Megalopolis will come out in UK cinemas on 27th September, so you can make your own mind up about it.