Posted in: Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: francis ford coppola, Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola Says "You Can't Put A Label On" Megalopolis

Director Francis Ford Coppola says, "You can't put a label on [Megalopolis]. And that's great. That's the kind of film I like."

It's starting to feel like no one involved with Megalopolis wants this film to make any money, including Francis Ford Coppola, out of some hipster notion that if the movie bombs, that means none of us "get it" and we'll all catch up to its genius eventually. A movie like this would always have a hard time finding distribution if the reviews weren't stellar, but the contentious reactions that have followed this movie around since May haven't been making the conversation around this film any better. Then the allegations against Coppola came out, the incident with the first trailer release happened, and now Coppola is doing interviews where he isn't exactly doing a very good job of explaining to people why Megalopolis is a film they should check out if they aren't a critic or someone who is into weird cinema. Coppola spoke about the idea that movies can be more than one thing to Empire and how the risk that went into making this film since it doesn't fit anywhere.

"The movie business tries to encourage everyone to think that there's only one way a movie can be," Coppola explained. "It has to have a protagonist, then, in the first few minutes, it has to have an antagonist. They are prescribing a formula that they'll be able to sell over and over again. So when a movie comes along that doesn't fit that formula, and they don't think it's a new formula that can be repeated, they don't want to do it because they feel there's too much risk."

There is nothing wrong with boundary-pushing, and Coppola goes on to explain that Megalopolis is something that can't really be defined. He explained, "As we know, the art we revere — Bizet's Carmen, artists like Picasso, Monet, and Matisse — is art that in its time was considered too risky or a failure. Apocalypse Now is a perfect example. When it came out, people said, 'What the hell is this?' But they never stopped going to see it. With Megalopolis, you can't put a label on it. And that's great. That's the kind of film I like." See, the thing is, most movies didn't have to make hundreds of millions of dollars back in the day, so the metric of "success" when Apocalypse Now was released in 1979 and when are now are two completely different things.

The movie-going audience has changed, not to mention we're in a recession heading into the holiday season when everyone will be even more broke. When people don't have a ton of money to spend on leisure activities, they want to know what they are getting into, and just saying that Megalopolis can't be defined and calling it good really isn't enough. Or, it isn't enough to get out of the red when your budget is $20 million more than the total box office of the film you're using as an example.

Megalopolis: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

Starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, and Dustin Hoffman, Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor's daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves. Written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the film is produced by Fred Roos, Barry Hirsch, and Michael Bederman, and executive produced by Anahid Nazarian, Barrie Osborne, and Darren Demetre. Megalopolis will be released in theaters on September 27th.

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