Even before it landed in theatres with a giant thud last weekend, Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi epic Megalopolis had all the makings for a box office bomb.
Coppola’s costly passion project centres on Cesar (Adam Driver), a visionary architect who battles his nemesis, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), in a bid to create a more idealistic future for their mythic city.
After dreaming about the film for decades, the 85-year-old Godfather and Apocalypse Now director ended up independently financing the feature for $120 million by selling a stake in his Napa Valley wine empire.
But critics were lukewarm after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Major studios and streaming services passed on distributing it and it was only after Lionsgate hopped onboard that it got a theatrical release. To try and drum up interest, Coppola had to again open his wallet to market the movie.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film was savaged by critics and audiences alike with a certified rotten rating of 35%. Vanity Fair said it was “a passion project gone horribly wrong” calling the finished product “tedious nonsense … stuffed with poorly elucidated ideas.”
When it played at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, more ink was spilled over its premiere party at Estiatorio Milos than on the actual film itself.
Despite his assertions that he wasn’t concerned about the film’s box office gross (“I couldn’t be more blessed,” Coppola told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of the film’s release), Megalopolis’$4 million debut likely left a bruise on the five-time Oscar winner whose previous directorial effort, 2011’s Twixt, was also summarily dismissed.
Industry analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations tells Postmedia he isn’t surprised Coppola’s visionary experiment failed to garner interest because there was already a well-established pattern of declining interest in “arthouse” fare.
The fact that Coppola had to self-finance the film “should have been the ultimate red flag for the director,” Bock thinks.
“You only have to look at the declining indie market to see Megalopolis was a massive gamble,” Bock says. “Even a more straight forward, classic narrative like Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, which starred Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie and had a very arthouse feel, failed to connect with audiences.”
With Megalopolis’ earliest scripts dating back to the ’70s, Bock thinks Coppola should have delayed the film a few more years to tell the story using AI. “Maybe then he could have made it for $5 million,” he says.
As Joker: Folie a Deux reigns supreme with audiences this weekend, Megalopolis will tumble into further obscurity. And it’s not the first time Coppola has wrestled with failure. In 1982, he plunged his production company Zoetrope into bankruptcy to make the little-seen musical-romance One From the Heart.
But his bold, swing-for-the-fences mentality is what guided him his whole career.
“Everyone’s so worried about money. I say: Give me less money and give me more friends,” Coppola said in his chat with the AP. “Friends are valuable. Money is very fragile. You could have a million marks in Germany at the end of World War II and you wouldn’t be able to buy a loaf of bread.”
In a 2020 interview with Postmedia, Coppola said that he always tried to tackle different subjects throughout his career, which began in the early 1960s.
“I took a lot of chances with my choices. Some I won with, but many I lost with,” he said at the time. “There are many goals in life. You can wish to be rich or famous, but after a while, you learn that the greatest pleasure of all is to be a man who has a sense of knowledge about life.”
Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore, said even though audiences didn’t turn out on opening weekend, movie fans should be celebrating Coppola for taking a gamble and trying to do something different.
“Coppola’s legacy is assured no matter what and to have the audaciousness to take his own money and risk everything at this late stage in his storied career should be an inspiration to all and a lesson in how to be fearless in the singular pursuit of your artistic vision,” Dergarabedian says.
“He took a big swing and whiffed at the box office, but perhaps it fulfilled him creatively,” Bock adds. “If that’s the case, then it’s money well spent.”
The discourse on Megalopolis’ paltry ticket sales and D+ CinemaScore is also missing the larger storyline, Dergarabedian explains. “As movie fans, we should appreciate the effort to greenlight movies not based on a profit and loss statement, but the potential that an interesting — if not great movie — can be seen on the big screen,” he says.
The disappointing number for Megalopolis mirrors the flop writer-director-producer-star Kevin Costner experienced earlier this year with Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, the first instalment of a proposed four-film Western series he began developing in the late 1980s and funneled $38 million of his own money into.
Costner was unbowed by the collapse, telling Entertainment Weeklyin an interview published the day Horizon released into theatres that he was “happy” with the finished product.
“I’ve lived with movies and what happens to them on their opening weekend,” he said. “If we put so much pressure on that, we’re bound to be disappointed.”
Still, after grossing $36 million at the worldwide box office, Costner’s Horizon: Chapter 2 saw its August release pushed off indefinitely.
Together, the two completed films might end up costing Costner millions. But he said he still intends to direct a third instalment in the series. “I have to hurry and not let the rock fall back downhill. I’ve gotta go put my hands on it again and start to push it up,” he said at the Venice Film Festival last month. “It’s a rope that I cannot let go of.”
Maybe for Hollywood to survive the late-career gambles taken by Coppola and Costner are exactly the kind of risk storytellers need to take.
Not every film is going to be a Marvel-sized hit. But for the artform to survive amidst competition from YouTube, TikTok and a never-ending slate of streaming titles, moviemakers will have to deliver a cinematic experience that is unique and wholly different.
Audiences of the future may come to view Megalopolis in a new light.
“The history of cinema is littered with amazing films that during their release were seen as critical and box office flops,” Dergarabedian says. “Some of those are now recognized as important and notable; perhaps someday Megalopolis can join the ranks of those reevaluated films.”
When we spoke four years ago, Coppola’s mind certainly was on the cinema of the future.
“I can’t say what’s coming next for the cinema, but I do know that the movies that your grandchildren will make will be beautiful and unlike anything I can imagine,” he said. “That fills me with a joy.”