Box office wins and bankruptcy: Francis Ford Coppola’s forgotten musicals
Many of the greatest directors in history have displayed remarkable longevity over a number of decades, while showcasing their endless versatility by taking on a number of disparate genres. As true as that is of Francis Ford Coppola, it’s clear that the filmmaker and the musical were a match made in hell.
After debuting with black-and-white horror Dementia 13 and following it up with comedy You’re a Big Boy Now, Coppola dipped his toes into the waters of cinematic song-and-dance on his third feature, which turned out to be the only one that didn’t end in complete, utter, and unmitigated financial disaster.
1968’s Finian’s Rainbow was adapted from the stage production of the same name that debuted on Broadway in 1947, with Fred Astaire headlining the cast as the titular Irishman. Stealing a pot of gold from a leprechaun alongside his daughter, the duo’s get-rich-quick scheme takes them to the South, where they run afoul of greedy landowners and a bigoted senator.
A rousing success by every conceivable metric, Finian’s Rainbow recouped its budget almost four times over at the box office, earned Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Score’ and ‘Best Sound’, and was shortlisted for five Golden Globes, including ‘Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy’. Coppola had acquitted himself remarkably well, but it endures as the only musical he ever directed that didn’t come close to ruining him.
Seeking a fresh challenge after one of the hottest periods in any filmmaker’s career that yielded The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now in the space of seven years, Coppola headed back to musical territory with One from the Heart and ended up with his first declaration of bankruptcy.
The lavish chronicle of a five-year romance, the budget swelled to $26million thanks in large part to Coppola’s insistence that the scope, scale, and spectacle be raised to new and ever more ambitious heights. When it earned a pitiful $637,000 from cinemas, the filmmaker ended up declaring bankruptcy three times in total over the next decade having been left so deeply in the hole he owed tens of millions to various debtors, creditors, and investors.
Having apparently learned nothing, Coppola would then experience a very similar fate when The Cotton Club was shunned by the ticket-paying public in 1984. Although he wasn’t solely liable this time due to his status as director and little more, the ballooning costs led to restraining orders, legal action for fraud and breach of contract, and a protracted courtroom battle instigated by the massive losses incurred on a film that initially secured $12million in financing, but ended up costing $58million by the time the dust had settled.
Unsurprisingly, then, Coppola hasn’t returned to the musical arena in the 40 years since, but the fact he footed the entire budget for Megalopolis out of his own pocket has underlined that he hasn’t lost any of his self-belief. The evidence is right there in the numbers that it doesn’t always go according to plan, but such dedication and commitment at least have to be admired. With five Oscars to his name and a litany of classics under his belt, Coppola reached the summit by betting big on himself and enduring some truly torturous experiences along the way, with teetering on the brink of financial oblivion a regular occurrence.
One from the Heart and The Cotton Club may have been follies on a colossal scale in terms of their investment-to-profit ratios, but each has since been reappraised as being amongst Coppola’s most underrated works. The visuals and production design are sumptuous, the musical numbers enhance both story and character, and it’s evident in every frame that he gave himself completely to the project in order to realise them in line with his artistic and creative vision.
The downside is that they haemorrhaged a ludicrous amount of cash and came very close to destroying his career, but at least Finian’s Rainbow ensures he isn’t boasting a 100% success rate for near-ruinous musicals.
