Sofia Coppola Scraps Next Film With Kirsten Dunst: “It Felt Too Sad in These Dark Times”

For well over a year, Sofia Coppola has been telling outlets that she’d written her next film, and her frequent collaborator, Kirsten Dunst, was set to star.

No plot details or further casting were revealed, but this was a period piece set in the U.S. and focusing on a “real person,” though not one who is widely known. The plan, according to both Coppola and Dunst, was to shoot the film this year.

Now it seems as though it won’t be happening. Coppola has put aside the project — maybe even scrapped it altogether. Her reasoning? It felt too “shallow” for these “dark times” (via Elle)

It felt too sad. It’s confusing in these dark times. I want to offer some hope and beauty in the world, but then you also don’t want to do something shallow, because it feels like a time for deep things.

Well, that’s too bad, but let me get this straight: Coppola felt that the film would be too sad, especially given the confusion and heaviness of “these dark times,” and she didn’t want to add to that burden? Isn’t much of art supposed to do just that? Her aim of “hope and beauty” for her next project is somewhat understandable, I guess.

Coppola last made “Priscilla,” released in 2023, a well-reviewed minimalist biopic of Elvis’ future wife, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. It was her eighth feature. Her notable works include “Lost in Translation,” “The Virgin Suicides,” “Marie Antoinette” and “Somewhere.”

Dunst and Coppola have built one of the more enduring actor-director partnerships of modern American cinema. Their collaboration began with “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), when Coppola cast a then-teenage Dunst. They reunited in “Marie Antoinette” (2006), with Dunst embodying Coppola’s vision of the young queen, and later in “The Beguiled” (2017), a remake of Clint Eastwood’s 1971 film.

I don’t believe Coppola has topped “Lost in Translation,” the film around which she has since built her career. In fact, her first three films remain her best. There’s something to like in every one of the eight films Coppola has directed, but I don’t believe she has ever again reached the heights she attained between 2000 and 2006.