Buried deep inside yesterday’s Coppola piece was the fact that director Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”), is shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary on “Megalopolis”. Has he hit a goldmine of footage? “Hearts of Darkness: Part Deux”?
If you remember, the legendary chaos behind the production of Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” was captured in an excellent document titled “Hearts of Darkness.” That film portrayed just how damaging the production was to Coppola’s sanity. The 4-year pre and post production ordeal damn-near mentally broke Coppola.
How transparent Figgis will be in his document of the “Megalopolis” set remains to be seen, but there definitely has already been drama with key creative talent such as the visual effects production supervisor, production designer, and supervising art director being fired last month over “creative differences.”
One only hopes that Figgis doesn’t only catch the chaos, but Coppola, the legend, at work on what could very well be his swan song. The legendary Oscar-winning director is self-funding “Megalopolis,” a passion project more than three decades in the making. The cost is said to be around $120 million for the epic.
Production began in Atlanta back in November and will continue to run until March.
While James L. Brooks teased last year that "we'll soon be seeing" Jack Nicholson, 89, act again, and that he was "reading scripts," that idea has now been shut down by his close friend Michael Douglas, 82.