After more than 40 years since the initial idea, Francis Ford Coppola 85, displays for the first time “Megalopolis” this Thursday (16) at the Cannes Film Festival. The film entered the official selection of the competition and competes for the Palme d'Or.
The filmmaker responsible for emblematic titles in the history of cinema, such as the trilogy “The Godfather” (1972/1974/1990), had the idea for the film years ago, in 1977, when he was still filming “Apocalypse Now” (1979). Over the years, he collected “notes and clips in a scrapbook of things I thought would be interesting for a future script,” he told Vanity Fair.
In 1990, Coppola's production company, American Zoetrope, announced several projects in development, including what would later be called “Megalopolis”. However, production was postponed to 1996 and, at the time, the director chose to prioritize other stories, such as “Jack” and “The Man Who Made It Rain”.
In 2001, he went ahead with the project, which included names like Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCpario, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Paul Newman and Uma Thurman. However, after the September 11 attack in New York, the filmmaker declared that he would rewrite the plot and discarded previously recorded material.
A few years later, in 2007, Coppola revealed that the attack “it made it really very difficult… a film about aspiring utopia with New York as the main character and then suddenly you couldn't write about New York without just dealing with what happened and the implications of what happened. The world was attacked and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
It was in 2019 that he decided to reinvest in this project. In the following years, the search for actors, script refinements, among other issues, began. Recording began in 2022. That year, in an interview with GQ, Coppola estimated that production would cost around US$120 million (R$616 million). He financed the title himself.
To Vanity Fair, Coppola described “Megalopolis” as a “Roman epic in modern America” . According to the synopsis, the film will center on an architect who wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia after a devastating disaster.
He told the magazine: “My dream is for 'Megalopolis' to become the favorite New Year's film, with viewers discussing afterwards, not their resolutions to diet or quit smoking, but a simple question: 'the society we live in' is it the only one available to us?'.
The plot starring Adam Driver (“Marriage Stories” and “Ferrari”), Nathalie Emmanuel (“Fast and Furious” and “Game of Thrones”), Dustin Hoffman (“Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Rain Man”), Shia LaBeouf (“Transformers” and “Iron Hearts”) and Aubrey Plaza (“The White Lotus“).
In a post on social media to promote the trailer, Coppola stated that it is “the best work I have had the privilege of leading”. He also revealed that the film is dedicated to his wife Eleanor Coppola , who died at the age of 87 on April 12th. They had been together for 61 years and are parents of Roman Coppola (writer and producer of several Wes Anderson films) and Sofia Coppola (“Encontros e Desencontros” and “Priscilla”).
It is the director's first feature film in years. His last major production was in 2011, “Virginia”, a horror starring Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning.
Watch the trailer
Source: CNN Brasil
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