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Megalopolis (film)
2024
American film by Francis Ford Coppola
R · 2 hr 18 mins · Drama/Science Fiction
Megalopolis is a 2024 American epic science fiction drama film written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. It features an ensemble cast including 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. Set in an imagined modern United States, it follows Cesar Catilina (Driver), a visionary architect, as he clashes with the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Esposito) in determining how to rebuild the metropolis of New Rome after a devastating disaster. The film references the characters involved in the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC, including Catiline and Cicero, in addition to Caesar.
Megalopolis was a passion project for Coppola, who wanted to make a film drawing parallels between the fall of Rome and the future of the United States by setting the events of the Catilinarian conspiracy in modern New York. He conceived the idea for the film in 1977, being inspired by the historian Sallust, and actively started developing it by assembling notes for a future script in 1983. Preparations for a film based around his initial concept came together in 1989 to be shot in Rome, but was postponed after Coppola prioritized other projects to pay his debt to Hollywood after a string of box-office disappointments. Coppola revived the project in 2001, holding table reads with prominent actors in New York. After 9/11, an event that resembled its plot and themes, the film was again abandoned. Having become disheartened working for the studio system, Coppola soon after declared his intentions to self-finance the project if it ever came to fruition.
Coppola announced his return to the film in 2019 and, two years after, sold a portion of his winery in California to spend $120 million of his own money to fund it. After a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, casting was underway by 2021. The film reunited Coppola with past collaborators, including actors Esposito, Fishburne, Remar, Shire, and Sweeney, cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr., second-unit director Roman Coppola, and composer Osvaldo Golijov. Principal photography took place from November 2022 to March 2023, in Georgia. Coppola adopted an experimental style that permitted improvisation during the shoot by letting actors write scenes and himself make spontaneous changes to the script. These methods proved divisive, leading to the resignation of the art department and visual effects team, among others, and raising comparisons to Coppola's history of challenging productions. Filming allegedly wrapped ahead of schedule.
Megalopolis was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on May 16, 2024, and polarized critics. The film is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States by Lionsgate Films on September 27.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq6mvHZU0fc
Set in an imagined modern United States