Megalopolis: Amazon and Apple Reportedly in the Running for Francis Ford Coppola's New Movie

One of the most ambitious films of the year, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, just got a surprising update. On Tuesday, reports dove into Megalopolis' continued search for a distributor, after Coppola held a screening of the film late last month for studio executives and other members of the entertainment industry. The report indicates that, solely in France, distribution for Megalopolis will potentially be handled by the company Le Pacte, which is known for projects such as Anatomy of a Fall. This distribution deal will reportedly be made to fulfill the requirements to appear in competition at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival.

That being said, Megalopolis still has yet to find a distributor in the United States, with some speculating that the proposed marketing commitments surrounding the film might be stalling those talks. New reports suggest that Netflix probably won't be the home of Megalopolis, as the streaming service does not follow France's local requirements for waiting fifteen months before releasing films on streaming. Both Amazon and Apple are believed to still be in the running to ultimately handle Megalopolis.

What Is Megalopolis About?

The plot of Megalopolis largely remains under wraps, but the film is reportedly set in an alternate reality version of New York City dubbed "New Rome." In the film, the fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love. Coppola has been wanting to make Megalopolis a reality since 1979, after initially conceiving of the idea during the filming of Apocalypse Now. While multiple iterations of the film have been in the works across several decades, the project eventually became a reality after Coppola sold part of his wine company to fund the $120 million production costs himself.

"Somewhere down the line, way after I'm gone, all I want is for them to discuss [Megalopolis] and, is the society we're living in the only one available to us?" Coppola said in a 2022 interview. "How can we make it better? Education, mental health? What the movie really is proposing is that utopia is not a place. It's how can we make everything better? Every year, come up with two, three or four ideas that make it better."

"I would be smiling in my grave if I thought something like that happened, because people talk about what movies really mean if you give them something," Coppola continued. "If you encouraged people to discuss marriage and education and health and justice and opportunities and freedom and all these wonderful things that human beings have conceived of. And ask the question, how can we make it even better? That would be great. Because I bet you they would make it better if they had that conversation."

Who Is in the Cast of Megalopolis?

The ensemble cast for Megalopolis includes Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter, Giancarlo Esposito Dustin Hoffman, DB Sweeney, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Bailey Ives, Grace Vanderwaal, and James Remar.

"It's kind of undefinable, which feels very general until you watch the movie," Driver revealed in an interview earlier this year. "Then my answer will be perfect. There's not a lot of precedent for it and it's wild on a big scale, which is what's really unique about it."

h/t: Variety