‘Megalopolis’ Reactions Remind Francis Ford Coppola Of ‘Apocalypse Now’

"The truth is that I find the experience of Megalopolis existing and being seen by an audience very similar to what it was like when I made Apocalypse Now," explains legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola as we chat over Zoom. "When Apocalypse Now came out, people saw it and said, 'Wow, what the hell is it?' There was an ambivalent confusion because it was clearly a film not made with any rules."

The director, who also wrote and produced the science fiction epic, isn't phased by, and is certainly no stranger to, his films receiving mixed reactions. Coppola would much prefer his films be considered divisive rather than boring.

"People don't expect to see food or drinks that are made without rules. Coca-Cola tastes like Coca-Cola, and they don't like it if you change it, but movies are also meant to be a certain kind of experience," he muses. "With Apocalypse Now, the experience was like, 'Wow. I have got to see it again.' People went to see it again because it wasn't boring; it was unusual, and they're still seeing it 40 years later. The same thing has happened with Megalopolis. Because it's not really boring, they're willing to see it again. My hunch is that people are going to see it again, and each time they see it, it becomes a different movie because it has a lot in it that is not apparent in the first viewing."

Set in a decaying metropolis called New Rome, Megalopolis sees Adam Driver play Cesar Catilina, an idealist architect given permission by the federal government to demolish and rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia using Megalon, "a material that can give him the power to control space and time." Giancarlo Esposito plays his regressive nemesis, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who is against the plan. Julia Cicero, the mayor's daughter, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, is caught between the two men. She's in love with Cesar but loves her father and has to make a choice. Megalopolis lands in theaters on Friday, September 27, 2024.

MORE FOR YOU
New Galaxy S25 Ultra Exclusive Teases Samsung’s Ambitious Plans
Janet Jackson Dismisses ‘Unauthorized’ Apology After Saying Kamala Harris Is Not Black—Here’s What To Know
UFC 308 Loses One Of Its Best Main Card Fights

Coppola Loves To See Audiences Reevaluating His Work

Another of Coppola's films that has enjoyed a reevaluation from audiences in the last few years is 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Although critics loved Gary Oldman's titular lead performance, the filmmaker's direction, and production values, they weren't kind to Oldman's co-star Keanu Reeves, and some called the film "dramatically over the top" and "overly bloated." It was, however, a significant box office hit, grossing $215.9 million against a $40 million budget, and received four Oscar nominations.

"I'll take what I get," Coppola says with a little laugh. "Dracula had a fantastic economic opening and financial return. It was one of the few movies I made that did. I was very worried about Dracula, and I remember my wife going to find out how it did because I was too frightened to get the phone call and learn how much it had made that opening week. She wrote it all on little pieces of paper, and I thought, 'Well, it made this? It made this?' She said, 'No, add them all together.' It's true that Dracula is a movie that people still watch."

"Apocalypse Now is a movie they still go see, and there are many others like The Conversation and One from the Heart. I'm told that inspired Joker 2, Joker: Folie à Deux. I read an article that says it has a musical form, and they based it on what they saw in One from the Heart, which was my colossal failure. I don't know what to expect, to be honest with you. With Megalopolis, I am confident that it will be a film people see over and over again because there's more in it, and you get more out of it if you see it a second and third time."

The filmmaker, who has made some of the greatest movies of all time, has a career that spans over sixty years and has directed some of the world's most acclaimed actors and actresses. Megalopolis boasts an ensemble cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, SNL's Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D. B. Sweeney, and  Dustin Hoffman, to name just a few. Eclectic doesn't begin to cover it, but Coppola knew they would all bring something unique and necessary to the film.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the two most important ingredients of cinema are writing and acting. Both writing and acting are subjects that you can spend your lifetime getting better at, but can have a compelling movie without good acting," Coppola says. "That's why actors are, most famously, the people who become great directors. More directors come from the rank of actors than from screenwriters, editors, or photographers. The great directors of the world came from having been actors. In this case, you know, I love my cast. My cast was so much fun and very much collaborators with me. I love the performances, so it's for the audience to decide whether they enjoy them or not, not me."

"I take that approach on all my pictures. Believe it or not, I did it on The Godfather. It was what the actors did that made those characters. This idea that a director gets a great performance out of an actor is not true. The actors do a great performance. The director is like a coach. Maybe you said something to the actor that helped them, but it's the actor who does the hard part. I personally love the performances and Megalopolis."

Coppola Says Filmmaking Is "A Problem-Solving Job"

As with Apocalypse Now, Coppola documented the making of his $120 million epic. That job fell to another acclaimed filmmaker, Mike Figgis, best known for the Oscar-winning drama Leaving Las Vegas and the Richard Gere crime thriller Internal Affairs.

Megalopolis, which finally premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is a project that Coppola has been trying to get off the ground for over 20 years. He first started filming footage in New York in September 2001, some of which the director has used in the opus audiences are finally getting to experience.

"I was shooting a second unit with the great cinematographer Ron Fricke, and what happened is that I always knew I wanted it to be a movie about a utopia, about a world coming together without all the bloodshed and horror," he recalls, "It happened right when 9/11 happened, in fact, I have footage of 9/11 and there's a little bit in the film. I couldn't write my way out of Islamic terrorism. I didn't know how to get out of it, so I eventually abandoned the film because I didn't know how to do it in a climate where there was such horror in the world. How am I going to make a movie about utopia? Years later, I thought I could do it, and I had what had been shot earlier, which was beautiful footage of New York. If you look at New York, it's very hard to find part of the city that isn't covered in scaffolds. It's hard to shoot New York as New York because it is utterly covered with them, and they're not going away for a while. One has to be a realist."

Coppola concludes, "Filmmaking is a problem-solving job. How do you do it, given the circumstances? My circumstances were what they were, and Megalopolis is what I was able to accomplish, but I'm proud of the film. There are certain films I'm very proud of. It's like your kids; you love them all, but my greatest failure as a filmmaker was One from the Heart. I paid very dearly for that bit of whimsy, but even that has come back to be more interesting years later. I love the cinema, I love the human family, and I love the children. That's what I'll tell you."