First Image of ‘Megalopolis' — The Script Has Had “Over 300" Rewrites Since its Inception

Here’s our first look image of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis" (via Variety). It’s a beauty. The metropolis can be seen in the background as Adam Driver’s architect. and his lover, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, tower over it.

Coppola self-funded the passion project, selling off a big chunk of his winery, and dishing out $120 million to make it. The film is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17 and, with that, some very high expectations.

Coppola describes Driver’s character as having the “power to stop time,” while Emmanuel’s character is caught between the two, deeply in love with the artist but loyal to her hard-charging father, “forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”

“The seeds for Megalopolis were planted when as a kid I saw H.G. Wells’s “Things to Come,” Coppola says. “This 1930s Korda classic is about building the world of tomorrow, and has always been with me, first as the ‘boy scientist’ I was and later as a filmmaker.”

“Early on, I remember once I took 130 blank pages and put on a title page boldly announcing Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, and under that, All Roads Lead to Rome. I pretended it wasn’t totally blank, weighing it in my hands so I could imagine what one day it would feel like, and believe one day it could exist. Then later, once I had a draft, I must have rewritten it 300 times, hoping each rewrite would improve it, if only a half percent better.”

In his statement to VF, Coppola includes a long list of names that influenced the creation of “Megalopolis”: “I wouldn’t have been able to make it without standing as I do on the shoulders of G.B. Shaw, Voltaire, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, Dickens, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Fournier, Morris, Carlyle, Ruskin, Butler, and Wells all rolled into one; with Euripides, Thomas More, Moliere, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Beaumarchais, Swift, Kubrick, Murnau, Goethe, Plato, Aeschylus, Spinoza, Durrell, Ibsen, Abel Gance, Fellini, Visconti, Bergman, Bergson, Hesse, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Cao Xueqin, Mizoguchi, Tolstoy, McCullough, Moses, and the prophets all thrown in.” 

“Megalopolis” currently has no U.S. distribution — Amazon and Apple are said to be in the running to acquire it. The sprawling cast is immense, including the likes of Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Jason Schwartzman Grace VanderWaal, James Remar, and Talia Shire.