Literally decades in the making, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is only a couple of weeks away from its big debut at Cannes. First dreamed up by Coppola in 1979 with development beginning in 1983, the film marks his first completed feature since 2011’s experimental film, Twixt, which few people saw.
Vanity Fair has the first official look at Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in Megalopolis, and based on star power alone this one could be huge. The sci-fi drama has an incredible ensemble of Giancarlo Esposito, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, Talia Shire, Dustin Hoffman, and D. B. Sweeney.
Here’s the official synopsis: An accident destroys a New York City-like metropolis already in decay. Caesar, an idealist, aims to rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia, while the venal mayor, Frank Cicero, has other plans. Coming between the opposing men and their visions is Frank’s socialite daughter, Julia. Tired of the attention and power she was born with, Julia searches for her life’s meaning.
“The seeds for Megalopolis were planted when as a kid I saw H.G. Wells’s Things to Come,” Coppola said to VF. “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.”
And this is no small undertaking. Coppola has thrown a lot of himself into making Megalopolis happen, including the sale of a part of his winery estate to help finance the $120M film.
Will it be worth it? So far, Megalopolis has only come close to landing distribution from a small indie label in France. It’s clear that bigger distributors, including those here in the States, are waiting to see how the film plays at Cannes.
