The first still from Francis Ford Coppola’s new film «Megalopolis» has been released. Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei in «Game of Thrones») appear in an intriguing poster from Vanity Fairin a scene set against the backdrop of retro-futuristic New York.
In the upcoming film by the director of «The Godfather», which is described as a sci-fi saga inspired by a Roman epic, Adam Driver plays an idealistic architect named Caesar who hopes to rebuild a once-great city. Nathalie Emmanuelle — is Julia Cicero, a socialite, the daughter of a corrupt mayor played by Giancarlo Esposito and the enemy of Driver’s character. The film’s synopsis tells us that Emmanuelle is caught between two men in search of the meaning of life.
The film also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne and Jason Schwartzman. In a statement accompanying the first look at the film, Coppola said that he had been working on the movie for 23 years (not 40, as sometimes written) and it was extremely inspired by ancient Rome.
«Eventually, after a long time, I settled on the idea of a Roman epic. And at the end of the day, it’s a Roman epic set in contemporary America, so I really started writing this script, off and on, over the last dozen years or so. Also, since I’ve made a lot of movies on a lot of different subjects and in a lot of different styles, I was hoping to tackle this project later in my life when I could get a better sense of what my personal style is».
Although filming officially began in 2022 and ended last year, Coppola conceived of many iterations of the movie and cast various actors over the years. The filming did not go smoothly: Coppola fired most of the film’s visual effects team in December 2023, and the rest of the department left soon after. The film’s production designer and art director also left the project. One of the agents whose client was among those laid off says that «it was absolute madness to be on the set of». Witm, «Megalopolis» is apparently finished.
Early leaks of reactions to the film have been mixed, surprising and outright negative. The film will debut at the Cannes Film Festival in a few weeks. At that time, the first official reviews will be released before the film’s release this year.