‘Megalopolis’: The 5 Most WTF Moments From Francis Ford Coppola’s Sci-Fi Epic

In these days of extreme political polarization, one longs for signs of unity and humanity, even if we have to reach back nearly 40 years in the wayback machine to find it. 

Megalopolis,” which began as a script he started 40 years ago. None of Hollywood’s studio bosses liked it then — and now it’s unclear when or if it will end up in American theaters.

Angelique Jackson Weeks after Emmy nominee Giancarlo Esposito teased that he’d be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe “sooner than you think,” Variety can confirm that he will appear in “Captain America: Brave New World,” which hits theaters next year. Esposito revealed he’d been cast in a Marvel project during a panel at CCXP in Brazil earlier this month. There he squashed fan speculation that he’d play Professor X in the widely expected Marvel Cinematic Universe version of “X-Men.” “There’s something about being original.

Ellise Shafer George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola reflected on their lifelong bond as the “Megalopolis” director presented the “Star Wars” auteur with Cannes Film Festival‘s honorary Palme d’Or on Saturday night. In his speech, Coppola recalled his first meeting with Lucas, who shadowed him on the set of his first studio film, “Finian’s Rainbow,” in 1968.

Star Wars creator George Lucas was fêted with an Honorary Palme d’Or at this evening’s Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony.

Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale), and Shea Whigham (Joker) have been tapped as series regulars on Netflix‘s new drama series Death by Lightning, joining previously cast Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Shannon, Betty Gilpin and Nick Offerman. Additionally, Stephen McKinley Henderson (Civil War), Paula Malcomson (Parish) and Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey) are set as recurring on the series, executive produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

EXCLUSIVE: Francis Ford Coppola‘s $120 million passion project Megalopolis has closed a fresh raft of deals following its buzzy world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival last week. 

Angelique Jackson Nathalie Emmanuel‘s first trip to the Cannes Film Festival was certainly a memorable one. The “Fast and Furious” franchise star and “Game of Thrones” alum knows what it’s like to be in the spotlight, but Cannes is unique. First, consider the fact that she’s the leading lady in legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola‘s longtime passion project “Megalopolis,” which made its world premiere at the festival.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Straying from the hotheaded “Taxi Driver” style that has dominated much of his career, Paul Schrader pays ruminative and respectful tribute to his late friend, novelist Russell Banks, who gave the writer-director the raw material for one of his best films, “Affliction” — and now, for one of his best films in years. Adapted from Banks’ “Foregone” (and given the title the author told Schrader he wanted for the book), “Oh, Canada” presents a dying artist’s final testimony as a multifaceted film-within-a-film, honoring Banks while also revealing so many of Schrader’s own thoughts on mortality.

Francis Ford Coppola has lamented the state of modern cinema, claiming some major studios no longer focus on making high quality films.Speaking at a press conference at Cannes Film Festival following the world premiere of his new dystopian drama Megalopolis, Coppola expressed his view that studios are mostly focused on making money due to their high levels of debt.“I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt. And the job is not so much to make good movies, the job is to make sure they pay their debt obligations,” Coppola told Variety.However, The Godfather director believes streaming services could interrupt the old system and potentially have a positive impact on the industry.

Francis Ford Coppola shared his thoughts on the current studio system during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his self-financed epic “Megalopolis,” saying that they might not be around much longer. “I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt.

As Megalopolis looks to seek a U.S. distribution deal, pic’s filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was asked to comment on the state of the film industry and whether the movie’s best destination is on streaming.

When news first began circulating that distributors found Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project “Megalopolis” tough to market, people were quick to shrug their shoulders in response.

The most awaited film this year at the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, had its world premiere Thursday night, with the dystopian epic decades in the making landing a seven-minute standing ovation.

“When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free,” says Cesar Catalina, the futuristic architect at the beating heart of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (to give it its full title), a mad eco-sci-fi blockbuster some 40 years in the making. Catalina says it several times, and it’s one of the more succinct aphorisms that he spouts in a script that is stuffed with seemingly random literary allusions from the likes of Petrarch, Crassus and Marcus Aurelius to Goethe, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Watching Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire and eating cheese afterwards would be the only way to replicate its fever-dream grandeur, a series of stunning images, carried along by the loosest of plots, that pontificate on the self-destructive nature of humankind, the only species capable of civilizing itself to death.

Many questions abound as Francis Ford Coppola‘s self-budgeted epic “Megalopolis” heads into its Cannes debut. Will the film be received more generously than its LA industry screening in March? Will Coppola find a distributor for it on the Croisette? And will “Megalopolis” survive controversy and be a smash success at the festival much like Coppola’s 1979 masterwork “Apocalypse Now“? READ MORE: ‘Megalopolis’ Teaser: One Man Wants To Create A Utopia In Francis Ford Coppola’s Passion Project IMAX is banking on “Megalopolis” no matter what happens after its premiere.

Imax has committed screens around the world to show Francis Ford Coppola‘s magnum opus “Megalopolis,” the company’s CEO Richard Gelfond confirmed at a Cannes Film Festival event on Thursday. The film’s trailer, which debuted on Tuesday, said that “Megalopolis” would be coming to Imax theaters this year — but it was not specified that the release would be global. The run-up to the premiere of Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed epic at Cannes on Friday has been filled with anticipation and controversy, partly because “Megalopolis” has yet to secure a U.S.

Alex Ritman Nathalie Emmanuel knows all about not talking about the projects she’s in. Seven years on “Game of Thrones” as the fan-favorite Missandei gave the Brit an instant lesson on the dangers of spoiling a show where much of its popularity rested on an endless supply of (mostly bloody) shocks and surprises. But Emmanuel’s now unable to talk about something very different, and for very different reasons.

Megalopolis, without ever getting round to filming any scenes.The Godfather and Apocalypse Now director is preparing for the world premiere of the film at the Cannes Film Festival this week (May 17), but a new report suggests that many on the film’s crew were left frustrated and confused by his unconventional filmmaking techniques.Speaking anonymously to the Guardian, one crew member explained: “He would often show up in the mornings before these big sequences and because no plan had been put in place, and because he wouldn’t allow his collaborators to put a plan in place, he would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana … And hours and hours would go by without anything being filmed.”“And the crew and the cast would all stand around and wait. And then he’d come out and whip up something that didn’t make sense, and that didn’t follow anything anybody had spoken about or anything that was on the page, and we’d all just go along with it, trying to make the best out of it.

For years, the idea of “Megalopolis” has been enough to fuel speculation. How could this film possibly be so important that Francis Ford Coppola was willing to stake his career on it? Not only that, this passion project means so much to the director that he felt compelled to put up his own money to finance the $120 million epic.