We’re still over a month away from the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, but the ambitious and genre-bending film has already provoked no shortage of conversation. That was especially the case with the film’s latest trailer, which opened with pull-quotes believed to be from negative reviews of Coppola’s previous films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. The pull-quotes cited in the trailer, which were attributed to legendary film critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, were quickly found to be fabricated. Hours after the new Megalopolis trailer first dropped, the film’s distributor Lionsgate confirmed that they are pulling the trailer altogether, apologizing to both the critics involved and Coppola himself for the error.ย
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. ย We screwed up. ย We are sorry.”
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What Isย Megalopolisย About?
Megalopolisย is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.
“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 saidย 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 ofย Megalopolis?
The ensemble cast forย Megalopolisย includesย Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero, Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero, Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher, Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III, Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz, Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina, Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater, Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, Kathryn Hunter as Teresa Cicero, and Dustin Hoffman as Nush “The Fixer” Berman.
“It’s kind of undefinable, which feels very general until you watch the movie,” Driver revealedย in an interview earlier this year.ย “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.”
Megalopolisย will be released exclusively in theaters on Friday, September 27th.
