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    Francis Ford Coppola and ‘Megalopolis’: What to Know

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    The controversies surrounding the new epic include accusations of on-set problems, a pulled trailer and more.Francis Ford Coppola waged war with studio heads throughout the making of “The Godfather.” Production on his 1979 Vietnam War epic, “Apocalypse Now,” was so troubled — there was a typhoon and a near-fatal heart attack — that it was chronicled in a documentary.So it’s not exactly a surprise that his latest movie, “Megalopolis,” a nearly two-and-a-half-hour futuristic fable about the battle between art and greed that stars Adam Driver, arrives in theaters Friday mired in controversy.The 85-year-old filmmaker’s self-financed passion project, which he conceived all the way back in the 1970s, has earned headlines about a reportedly chaotic shoot, allegations of misconduct and questions about the film’s commercial prospects. While we wait to see whether it will find a place in the canon of Coppola masterpieces or go down as a $120 million mistake, here is a guide to the movie’s complicated history.When did this all start?More than four decades ago. Yes, you read that right — Coppola first had the idea toward the end of filming “Apocalypse Now” in the late 1970s. The new project, he told Film Comment in 1983, would confront big questions — the why and what of existence. It simmered on the back burner for years — Coppola scrapped and re-envisioned the script in each subsequent decade — until he finally began shooting it in 2022.Why did it take so long to make?Coppola followed up “Apocalypse Now” with “One From the Heart,” a 1982 musical romance that bombed at the box office, grossing a mere $636,796 against a $26 million budget. That meant he was stuck making studio-friendly films for a decade so he could pay off his debts. (A film called “Megalopolis,” after all, hardly portends a small budget.)But even after “The Godfather Part III” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” put him back on track, studios remained cautious about signing on, fearing a repeat of the infamously chaotic production of “Apocalypse Now.” Also, after Sept. 11, the idea of a film about New York City being rebuilt after being nearly destroyed hit a little too, well, close to home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Coppola Sues After Report Said He Tried to Kiss ‘Megalopolis’ Extras

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      The director Francis Ford Coppola is seeking at least $15 million in damages from Variety.Francis Ford Coppola, the celebrated director of the “Godfather” movies and “Apocalypse Now,” sued the Hollywood trade magazine Variety and two of its editors for libel this week after it reported that he had behaved unprofessionally on the “Megalopolis” set, including by trying to kiss extras.Coppola, 85, is seeking at least $15 million in damages.The Variety article, which was published in July, said Coppola had pulled women onto his lap and tried to kiss them during the filming of a nightclub sequence. The article included two videos from the set in which the director appears to be trying to hug and kiss extras.The claims echoed those in an article that was published by The Guardian in May. An executive co-producer of the film, which is scheduled to open in theaters this month, told The Guardian that he had heard no complaints of misconduct and that Coppola’s behavior during that sequence was intended to “establish the spirit of the scene.”Libel cases against public figures face a high bar in the United States. People who file such suits must prove not only that a falsehood harmed their reputation, but that the publisher knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth.“To see our collective efforts tainted by false, reckless and irresponsible reporting is devastating,” Coppola said in a statement on Wednesday, the day his suit was filed in California state court. “No publication, especially a legacy industry outlet, should be enabled to use surreptitious video and unnamed sources in pursuit of their own financial gain.”Coppola sold part of his wine estate to put up $120 million to finance “Megalopolis,” an ambitious and experimental saga about an architect (Adam Driver) who seeks to rebuild a futuristic New York City.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Megalopolis’ Trailer Pulled for Featuring Fake Movie Critic Quotes

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      To promote Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, the spot used supposed lines from The Times, The New Yorker and others to suggest critics were wrong about him.A new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” featuring fake negative quotes from film critics has been pulled by the movie’s distributor, Lionsgate, a spokesman for the company said Wednesday.The trailer, which was posted in the morning, featured quotes from well-known film critics of the past including Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, Vincent Canby of The New York Times and Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun Times panning previous Coppola films like “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”However, as the critic Bilge Ebiri first reported in Vulture, the quotes are not real. The trailer has now been pulled from YouTube, after amassing more than 1.3 million views in the single day it was online.“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a spokesman for the company said in a statement. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”“Megalopolis,” which was self-financed by Coppola and is due in theaters Sept. 27, was initially unable to find a buyer until Lionsgate stepped in. The epic fantasy premiered to a decidedly mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, it stands at just 53 percent fresh among critics. The trailer seemed to be an effort to show that reviews don’t always get it right when it comes to Coppola’s work.The spot quoted Kael as saying “The Godfather” was “diminished by its artsiness,” when in reality she wrote about it glowingly. While Canby, who served as senior film critic at The New York Times from 1969 to 1993, wasn’t a fan of “Apocalypse Now,” calling it an “intellectual muddle,” he didn’t use the phrase “hollow at the core” as the trailer indicates.The trailer also featured fake quotes from Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice, Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic, Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly, and Rex Reed in The New York Observer and The New York Daily News, according to the Vulture report.John Simon of National Review is also included in the spot, and a writer for the magazine posted on X that the staff was checking the archive but believed it to be false.It is unclear how the faked quotes were created. Some on social media, speculating that artificial intelligence tools were used, started feeding prompts to ChatGPT looking for similar results.Lionsgate would not comment on whether ChatGPT or other tools powered by artificial intelligence were used for the trailer.The pulled trailer was not the first controversy surrounding the film. A report in The Guardian in May quoted anonymous sources accusing Coppola of trying to kiss female extras on the set of a nightclub scene. An executive co-producer, Darren Demetre, has said he was unaware of any harassment complaints made during the production, and Coppola later told The Times, “I’m not touchy-feely,” Coppola said. “I’m too shy.” More