The two films I’m most intrigued by this year are Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.” Nothing else comes close. We don’t know much about the latter, Coppola is, supposedly, still in post-production on it, and a Cannes premiere could definitely occur in May.
Adam Driver was interviewed by The Face, when asked to describe the film he paused and admitted that he really can’t and that it is only by watching it that you could understand what Coppola’s epic is really about:
It’s kind of undefinable, which feels very general until you watch the movie. Then my answer will be perfect. There’s not a lot of precedent for it and it’s wild on a big scale, which is what’s really unique about it.
I have read the script for “Megalopolis,” the ’83 draft, and can safely say that Driver’s comments aren’t hyperbole. It’s a wild vision that will be very hard to pull of on-screen. Coppola is going for broke with this one, and I just can’t wait to see what he has in store for us.
The crux of the story has Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), whose architect lover Caesar (Driver) is hellbent on redesigning New York City as a sprawling utopia in the aftermath of a disaster. Julia’s dad, Frank (Forest Whitaker), however, is in disagreement with his stepson. Julia is divided between loyalties to her father, who has a classical view of society, and her lover, who is more progressive and ready for the future.
The film stars Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman, Shia LaBeouf, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Schwartzman and Jon Voight.
Coppola, a legendary Oscar-winning director is self-funding “Megalopolis,” a passion project more than four decades in the making. He sold his lucrative winery to fund the film, which was said to cost around $120 million.
Coppola started writing “Megalopolis” in the early ‘80s. The earliest anecdote has Coppola talking about the project during the 1982 shoot of “The Outsiders.” So, this project must have been ruminating in his head right after “Apocalypse Now,” maybe even before.