the crazy epic of Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film

The 85-year-old American director went into personal debt to make the film, which cost nearly $120 million.

Wednesday, September 25th, released in theaters Megalopolisthe new film by Francis Ford Coppola. At 85, the legendary director of Godfather signs his return, 11 years later Twixt. Franceinfo traces the genesis of this work and its universe halfway between the collapse of Rome and a futuristic America, evoking numerous parallels with the production ofApocalypse Nowa cult film released 45 years ago, in 1979.

A project matured for 40 years

Francis Ford Coppola said that Megalopolis was dedicated to his wife Eleanor, who died in April 2024, revealing the first extract of the film in May 2024 before the Cannes Film Festival and which is scheduled for release on September 25. The project goes back much further. He even started writing it in 1982 and, according to him, he was already thinking about it during the filming ofApocalypse Now. After various attempts motivated in particular by an obsessive passion for the project, he had even agreed to direct other films such as Dracula (1992) to finance it. Auditions with big Hollywood names had taken place, while he was already shooting footage of New York. After years of development, he finally abandoned the project, aware that studios preferred to invest in franchises. In 2001, when he had started tests, the attacks of September 11 upended his approach to a city rebuilding after a cataclysm. And it was not until May 2019 that the film resurfaced.

A colossal budget

With no one willing to finance his film, Francis Ford Coppola decided to produce it himself, investing $120 million of his own money, which required selling several of his vineyards in California. He thus broke a Hollywood rule that directors should not finance their own projects. The filmmaker defends this form of independence and has also welcomed the film’s Palme d’Or award. Anora by Sean Baker, which was financed neither by a studio nor by a platform embodying a form of resistance in the world of American cinema. Francis Ford Coppola, who testified that he had already borrowed $30 million to Apocalypse Nowfaced similar challenges with Megalopolis. Preferring special effects to green screens, he saw his budget explode, while filming more than thirty hours of scenes in New York. Nothing is too big for the sacred monster.

A difficult shoot

The shooting of the film, described by Coppola as “dream project”was marked by significant chaos, with numerous resignations and a script rewritten more than 300 times. According to The Guardianthe process was so chaotic that one crew member compared the shoot to a train going off the rails, as Coppola, often isolated in his trailer, heavily consuming cannabis, changed ideas without a clear strategy. The actors, including Adam Driver, suffered from prolonged waits, and inappropriate choices drew criticism. Tensions came to a head in December 2022, halfway through the sixteen-week shoot, with most of the visual effects and art teams being fired or resigning. After portraying a distressed Coppola,The Guardian reported allegations that he encouraged women to sit on his lap and attempted to kiss an extra. In response, co-executive producer Darren Demeter defended Coppola, saying it was his way of creating an inspiring atmosphere, without ever receiving any complaints of harassment.

The dream kept at bay by critics

Francis Ford Coppola, who had been awarded two Palme d’Ors, one for Secret conversation (1974) and the other for Apocalypse Now (1979), this time returned from Cannes without distinction, faced with a rather harsh criticism of his latest work. The world premiere of Megalopolispresented at Cannes last May, provoked particularly contrasting reactions, The Guardian calling it “mega-boring”. Opinions diverge widely, illustrating a marked polarization among viewers and critics. While some praise Coppola’s bold ambition, others deplore the film’s chaotic execution and often inconsistent tone. References to Apocalypse Now further amplify the pressure, making judgments on Megalopolis all the more sharp.

Megalomaniac or avant-garde film?

But true to form, Francis Ford Coppola remains unperturbed and seems convinced that his film will have a similar destiny to that of Carmen of Bizet or that of….Apocalypse NowAt the time, no one believed in the latter, its screening at Cannes was a disaster, but today it is considered as a masterpiece of world cinema. The director presents himself as a visionary artist, capable of predicting the future, like Secret conversationreleased ten years before the Watergate scandal that shook the United States. To promote MegalopolisCoppola also wanted to recreate the impact ofApocalypse Now by asking Lionsgate, its distributor, to use newspaper headlines from 1979 to challenge critics. However, Lionsgate pulled the trailer after it ran false negative critical quotes about films like The Godfather And Apocalypse NowLionsgate has apologized for the mistake, while critic Owen Gleiberman has called out the trailer’s misleading narrative.

Not yet an end of career

SO, Megalopolisa testamentary work? Not quite, because even if the film suggested that it would be the director’s last film, Francis Ford Coppola revealed in an interview with Release that he is already working on a new project to fulfill an old dream. Coppola says that traditional cinema is based on editing, but he wants to experiment with shooting “live”. For this live project he simply indicated clues about the name “Electric Vision” Or “Distant Vision”. Although he considered making Favorite in this way, which he then called “electronic cinema”he finally followed the advice of his director of photography at the time, which he regrets. As for the deadline, the maestro has not yet indicated either a shooting date or a release date.