Francis Ford Coppola Working on Comic at Image Comics

Francis Ford Coppola is simultaneously making one of the largest films of his career and joining the world of comics. Announced at WonderCon 2023 over the weekend, Coppola's Megalopolis is being turned into a graphic novel thanks to Image Comics. At the Anaheim-based convention, Image held a panel spotlight its new Syzygy imprint, led in part by former IDW publisher Chris Ryall. During the panel, it was revealed Ryall is adapting an original story set in the world of Megalopolis alongside artist Jacob Phillips.

"The exciting thing is that I've only worked directly with him on this," Ryall told Popverse about the project. "This isn't the kind of thing where he licensed out the material – the movie and the book are solely his. We spent a few hours in Atlanta last month talking about not only this graphic novel but the childhood comics he loved, and all the way along, he's been permissive and encouraging in telling us to make the book very much its own thing. So it's been a kind of stunning arrangement, to get to work directly with someone of his stature on something like this.

"And for me, as a huge fan of not only Jacob's color work on the Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips graphic novels but certainly also the amazing art and colors on his That Texas Blood series, getting to work with Jacob while he's on such a creative roll is also a thrill. Gonna be fun to build this particular corner of Francis' new city," the writer added.

Ryall was on the film's set, working with Coppola himself on the story.

Despite finishing principal photography earlier this month, Megalopolis has been mired in much controversy surrounding "messy" on-set procedures. At one point, Coppola fired nearly the film's entire art department halfway through production.

"There's a certain way everyone thinks a film should be, and it rubs against the grain if you have another idea," the filmmaker said of the film last winter. "People can be very unaccepting, but sometimes the other idea represents what's coming in the future. That is worthy of being considered."