Francis Coppola / “Megalopolis”: The “New Rome”

Few filmmakers in history have demonstrated the creative passion and directorial audacity of Francis Coppola. So the announcement of his return to the director’s chair, with a project that has creatively tyrannized him for decades, is big news. The film will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17.

The ideologically ambitious and technologically demanding “Megalopolis” is the new life bet of a director who just turned 85 years old. Francis Coppola began writing the script for “Megalopolis” in the early 1980s, when he was fresh off the frenzy of long-running “Apocalypse Now!” (1979) and had escaped from the chaotic sets of the postmodern musical “One from the heart” (1981) which had ruined him financially. After the confidence Coppola felt after the first two “Godfathers” and after the psychedelic masterpiece about the paranoia of the war in Vietnam he embarked on a needlessly expensive romance that was swallowed up and with it the entire production studio he had founded, Zoetrope Studios. Coppola, after a string of masterpieces, went into debt and spent the next 15 years making movies to pay off the debt. Some of them were excellent (“Rumble fish”), while others were clearly made to order (“Peggy Gets Married”, “Gardens of stone”). Of course, a personal and ambitious epic like “Megalopolis” could only sit on the shelves for years.

In the late 90s, free of debt and with his wine production profitable, Fr. Coppola started working on the film’s script again, but after 9/11 it became clear that no one was willing to finance a project of this magnitude, with a script that talked about the utopian reconstruction of a big city after a disaster. After some more fruitless attempts at financing, he remembered his old risk-taking self and decided to mortgage his entire fortune to finance this project out of his own pocket – a bold move unprecedented in the history of cinema. The production investment is rumored to be between 100 and 120 million dollars.

The difficult road to the screen

“Megalopolis” wrapped production last year and on March 28 was shown at a closed screening in Los Angeles with studio heads, distributors and potential buyers. While details of the film’s plot remain unclear, reports say that ‘Megalopolis’ centers on an architect’s creative frenzy to defy chaos and build a megacity called ‘New Rome’. The director himself states: “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love.” Recently Fr. Coppola elaborated on how Rome inspired the film, stating, “I often think of ancient Rome, as it served as an example for my country and its institutions. My fascination with the Roman Republic is based on the struggle between political forces, where the interest of the Republic gives way to the ambitions of a few powerful men who want to consolidate their wealth and power, relying on the armed forces to achieve these goals.’ The 140-minute film will make its official premiere in the competition section of the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, exactly half a century since the director’s “The Conversation” won the Palme d’Or. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza and Jon Voight, with Adam Driver in the title role.

Here, then, is where one of the outcasts of a great creator finds its way to theaters. Whether a genius masterpiece will emerge that will triumphantly close an iconic run or something that will fall short of the expectations of a magnum opus from a jaded visionary remains to be seen. But there is still one obstacle: finding the studio that will take the risk of buying such an unclassified and demanding film, which, let’s not laugh, is very difficult to bring back its money. As characteristically stated once Fr. Coppola on his venture: “What’s the worst that can happen to me? Should I die unmarried?’ But we’re not in the 70s where directors were the strongest, as in 2024 studios, distributors and streamers don’t think that way.