This $770K Thursday intake is actually a lot more than I was expecting for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.” Of course, that’s still not good news for the film’s weekend prospects. Coppola self-financed the film and it’s currently on track to earn $5M by Sunday. The latest report has the film costing $136M.
The exits are quite bad for “Megalopolis” as its 1/2 star and 45% positive on PostTrak shows. It also has a 5.6/10 on IMDb. Mainstream audiences will not like this film at all. Coppola’s pricey avant-garde experiment isn’t for the masses, and that’s okay, I don’t think its maker ever envisioned the film to become a blockbuster success, or did he?
The most adventurous of curiosity seekers will be headed to theaters this weekend to witness “Megalopolis” for themselves. “People want to see for themselves whether it’s a mess or a masterpiece,” Coppola recently told The Wall Street Journal. He’s right. You have The New Yorker’s Richard Brody practically calling it a masterpiece, and on the other side, a San Francisco Gate headline that reads “Megalopolis” is a “piece of s—t”
Meanwhile, spurred by strong reviews, Dreamworks’ “The Wild Robot” nabbed $1.9M on Thursday. It could open anywhere between $25M-$30M. It’s now the frontrunner to win the animated film Oscar. The reported budget for ‘Wild Robot’ is said to be $78M.