Francis Ford Coppola unveils plans for next movie
After the disappointing reception to Megalopolis, director Francis Ford Coppola is already preparing to move onto a new project which he claims will be a “strange ‘30s-style musical”.
By now, Coppola has the freedom to do whatever he wants with his career, which he has duly earned due to his artistic ventures. After hitting the big time with his franchise, The Godfather, the director has more than his fair share of truly iconic films under his belt, including Apocalypse Now, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and more.
Coppola’s cinematic legacy is also so powerful that he has essentially created a dynasty. His daughters Sofia and Gia Coppola have also entered the movie-making world, establishing themselves as important directors in their own right.
However, Coppola’s latest release didn’t meet expectations at the box office. After decades in the making and over a hundred million of his own dollars spent on funding the production, Megalopolis failed to make back its cost.
Nevertheless, clearly, the director has not been deterred as he’s already looking ahead to his next production. Speaking to The Washington Post he said that he intends to start production on his next project, Glimpses Of The Moon, in London in the new year.
He described the picture as “a strange ‘30s-style musical” and “a very odd confection” with “strong dance and musical elements”. He also added that this time round, the film hasn’t been self-funded but instead had been made “the conventional way, with the help of national subsidies, because I’m all borrowed out”. He added, “It won’t be cheap by any means,” he continued, but said that, unlike his expensive production for Megalopolis, it would not be an “epic”.
The upcoming movie, Glimpses Of The Moon, is an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel of the same name, about the trials of marriage. It will also include elements of the 1937 comedy The Awful Truth, which also explores marriage and the regretful breakdown of a relationship.
It’s clear that Coppola has his future set out as he also shared that after Glimpses Of The Moon, he already knows what he’ll do next. Distant Vision, he says, will be his final film, and he’s promised it will be “more ambitious than Megalopolis.”
What went wrong with ‘Megalopolis’?
It seemed as though Coppola’s Megalopolis was doomed from the start. First came the matter of funding, as the veteran director spent decades trying and failing to find support for the movie until he eventually self-funded the project, funnelling over $120 million of his own money into the production. So already, the film had to bring in some hefty profits to bring it back into the green.
Additionally, the casting of the film didn’t help matters. Coppola specifically set out to cast ‘cancelled’ actors, adamant that this wouldn’t be a so-called “woke Hollywood production.” However, the inclusion of figures such as Shia LaBeouf certainly dampened public support for the movie. The controversies on set also didn’t help matters, as the director himself was accused of misconduct and nonconsensually kissing an extra on set, which he denied.
Furthermore, a trailer was shared that included fake quotes from critics,leading to a marketing consultant on the film being fired.
In the end, the film only made $13.7 million worldwide, meaning that Coppola didn’t even make a dent in the money he put into the film.
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