Francis Ford Coppola has been hard at work on Megalopolis, his sci-fi epic that has been decades in the making. The director took to Instagram to unveil the first look at Megalopolis, which shows a dingy, rain-soaked alley with a collapsed statue in the center. The image features the title “Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.”
It’s not much, but the first look at Megalopolis does potentially show that the project is on track to be released later this year. Plot details have largely been kept under wraps, but the film is said to center on an architect who seeks to rebuild New York City as a utopia after a disaster. The director did offer a few more details two years ago, but they’re fairly ambiguous.
“It’s a love story…A woman is divided between loyalties to two men. But not only two men. Each man comes with a philosophical principle. One is her father who raised her, who taught her Latin on his lap and is devoted to a much more classical view of society, the Marcus Aurelius kind of view,” Coppola explained. “The other one, who is the lover, is the enemy of the father but is dedicated to a much more progressive ‘Let’s leap into the future, let’s leap over all of this garbage that has contaminated humanity for 10,000 years. Let’s find what we really are, which are an enlightened, friendly, joyous species.’“
The film also boasts quite a star-studded ensemble cast, which features Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman, DB Sweeney, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Bailey Ives, Grace Vanderwaal, and James Remar.
Francis Ford Coppola began writing Megalopolis in the 1980s but recognized that it would require a huge budget to match its massive scope, so it sat on a shelf for decades. Once production finally kicked off, there were reports that the budget had grown out of control, which Coppola denied. “I’ve never worked on a film where I was so happy with the cast,” Coppola said. “I am so happy with the look and that we are so on schedule. These reports never say who these sources are. To them, I say, ha, ha, just wait and see. Because this is a beautiful film and primarily so because the cast is so great. I’ve never enjoyed working with a cast who are so hardworking and so willing to go search for the unconventional, to come upon hidden solutions. It is a thrill to work with these actors and the photography is everything I could hope for. The dailies are great. So if we’re on schedule, and I love the actors and the look is great, I don’t know what anyone’s talking about here.“