Described as ‘Francis Ford Coppola’s $100m gamble’, the Godfather’s director’s long-gestated, self-funded movie epic Megalopolis has already acquired a mythical status in Hollywood.
A passion project the 83-year-old has been planning since the time he made Apocalypse Now – that’s the late '70s, kids – was originally conceived as an ensemble piece about a post-financial crisis New York City, and almost got underway back in 2001 until the 11 September acts intervened.
But Coppola was clearly tired of waiting around because he's stumped up the cash himself, putting up his own $120 million — and selling a “significant piece” of his wine empire — per his conversation with GQ back in 2022. Such has been his admirable persistence to get the movie made, the octogenarian looks to be joining the ranks of recent big-name auteurs, from Scorsese to Gillian, putting out big-budget passion projects.
But what is it about? Can we expect it to be more Godfather or… Godfather Pt. III? And will it see gangly star Adam Driver take the wheel of a comically small car, as has been an infrequent sight gag in his movies? All of that and more, below.
Megalopolis looks to be a little bit of Blade Runner, a little bit of Wall Street, and a little bit of Julius Caesar
We still don't know that much about Megalopolis, with an official logline trading in ambiguity: “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and dangerous love.” Meanwhile, our friends across the point at US GQ, have described it as a “sprawling story about an ambitious young architect aiming to recreate New York City in the wake of a tragedy, loosely inspired by a Roman coup d'état called the Catilinarian conspiracy.”
Appropriately, Driver's character, the aforementioned architect, is called… Caesar. Et tu, Adam?So our immediate takeaway is that yes, like most men (per the viral TikTok meme that did the rounds in the autumn), Coppola thinks about the Roman Empire a lot.
Further, filmmaker Mike Figgis, now shooting a documentary about the making of Megalopolis, has described it as “Julius Caesar meets Blade Runner”. Take that as you will — US GQ newsie Grant Rindner infers that this “suggests an intriguing synthesis of futuristic urbanism and the classical Roman roots at the heart of the plot”. Couldn't say it better ourselves.
As far as Driver's concerned, it's totally incomparable to anything already out there. Speaking to Paste magazine, he said “Megalopolis is one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of, with Francis [Ford Coppola] in particular,” adding, “It’s one of the best shooting experiences I’ve had. And the things that he’s made, there’s no frame of reference for it. It’s so unique and inventive and hopefully accessible to everyone.”
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Coppola himself has described the project most recently as a contemporary drama focused on “the fate of Rome as it haunts a modern world unable to solve its social problems in an epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicting interests".
In an interview with GQ back in 2022, he also gave more insight, elaborating that the film is “a love story. 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”. Somehow, we know even less now.
And, of course, it has a Rome-sized ensemble
Production has almost wrapped on the project, with Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman and Dustin Hoffman just some of the impressive cast. At various points in its years-long pursuit of the screen, names like Robert De Niro and Nicolas Cage, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Cate Blanchett and James Caan had all been attached.
The biggest question of all: will it be any good?
A passion project always raises a few eyebrows because, let's be honest, few of them work (hello, 1986's Waterworld starring Kevin Costner). So will Megalopolis end up being a last career masterpiece from one of the few truly great auteurs, or a bloated white elephant that stomps all over his legacy?
We're naturally rooting for the former, but it's going to be a wild ride either way.
Oh, and when is it out?
Rumours have it that we could finally see it at the Cannes Film Festival this year, teeing it up for a 2024 release — but let's see how that bears out.
