Francis Ford Coppola reveals first clip of new movie ‘Megalopolis’
It’s been decades since Francis Ford Coppola started working on Megalopolis, but a first-look teaser trailer is finally here.
The director, who rose to prominence in the 1970s with The Godfather – a landmark moment in cinema history – began thinking about the concept for Megalopolis when he was working on Apocalypse Now, which was released all the way back in 1979.
The project is set to be the most extravagant thing he’s ever made, blending modern-day New York with elements of Ancient Rome. Coppola has previously admitted, however, that his plans to begin filming the movie in the early 2000s were halted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which echoed some elements of his script.
Thus, the footage of New York that Coppola shot was thrown to the wayside, and his plans to make the film – he’d even started auditioning actors – were discarded. Instead, he adapted a book, Youth Without Youth, about a man who finds it difficult to complete a large-scale artistic project.
Still, Coppola knew he wasn’t going to give up, even if the task of such a large movie was so daunting. He’d spent so much time on the script that he just needed to wait for the right moment to start production.
The filmmaker admitted to Vanity Fair that the screenplay has been written and rewritten hundreds of times. He explained, “Early on, I remember once I took 130 blank pages and put on a title page boldly announcing Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, and under that, All Roads Lead to Rome.”
“I pretended it wasn’t totally blank, weighing it in my hands so I could imagine what one day it would feel like, and believe one day it could exist,” he added. “Then later, once I had a draft, I must have rewritten it 300 times, hoping each rewrite would improve it, if only a half per cent better.”
The movie is set to feature a stacked cast, with Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito leading the ensemble. Other stars include Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Voight.
Megalopolis will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17th and will be the filmmaker’s first movie since 2011’s Twixt. Watch the first-look trailer below.
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