For years, Francis Ford Coppola has been hinting at his long-term passion project, Megalopolis, which is nearly complete. He informed Vanity Fair that watching Things to Come by H.G. Wells as a child was his initial source of inspiration for the movie. Coppola goes on to say that he didn’t work on this movie actively for all these years; instead, he gathered film of New York City in the early 2000s, including “heartbreaking images” of September 11, and thought a lot about the Roman Empire.
Watch the first-look trailer below
Coppola sold a portion of his vineyard to raise the $120 million budget, increasing interest in the film. Finally, Megalopolis will make its Cannes debut on May 17 of this month. Here’s all we know about the film, including the most recent information that includes a first-look video with Adam Driver.
What Will Megalopolis Be About?
After an accident decimates most of Megalopolis, Adam Driver plays Cesar, an architect with aspirations to reconstruct the metropolis into a sustainable utopia. Giancarlo Esposito’s character Frank Cicero, who serves as the mayor, opposes him and has no desire to see any changes. Julia Cicero, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, who is Cesar’s romantic interest and Frank’s daughter, stands between them. Along with Coppola’s sister Talia Shire and her son Jason Schwartzman, the remaining cast members are Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman, D. B. Sweeney, James Remar, and Chloe Fineman. We realized that there was an important detail we had overlooked – Cesar can freeze time.
In a first-look video released on May 4, it appears Cesar (the driver) is about to fall off a building. However, he then cries out “Time stop!”, which is an unusual tactic. He freezes in midair before returning to a standing position, visibly shaken. It is reminiscent of a tactic used when one loses a game “Red-Light-Green-Light” in a playground.
Is Megalopolis Based on a Book?
Instead of being adapted from an existing book or script, Coppola wrote an original screenplay. However, Coppola listed several novels that “strongly have influenced Megalopolis and my view of the society we live in'” in an Instagram post from July 2023.
The film has its Cannes premiere on May 17, however, there has been no announcement regarding a global distribution date yet.
What do you think of Megalopolis? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Vanity Fair
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