This article contains mild spoilers for "Megalopolis" and "Joker: Folie à Deux."

The film industry has just experienced what seems to me an unprecedented two week span of outrageous misfortune. If we trust the high end of their estimated budgets, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" and Todd Phillips' "Joker: Folie à Deux" combined to gross a mere $44 million on exorbitant budgets totaling $344 million.

On the surface, "Megalopolis" would appear to be the bigger disaster; now in its second weekend, the $136 million production has amassed only a paltry $6 million. Granted, Coppola sold his Sonoma Country wineries and borrowed against his new ownership stake in the company that absorbed them to personally finance his physically and intellectually ambitious epic. It's not my money, so I don't care to discuss the wisdom of Coppola's investment; what matters to me is that a massive, star-studded film made without the support of a firmly established...

Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This article features plot details of Megalopolis.

It’s a great time for Old Man Cinema. Legendary filmmakers are leaning into their late eras in order to...

In 2007, Mihai Malaimare Jr. was a 29-year-old cinematographer working in Romania when he got his filmmaking dream job: shooting “Youth Without Youth” for Francis Ford Coppola as Coppola returned to the director’s chair for the first time in 10 years. Coppola wanted to reinvent himself and was looking for a partner who wouldn’t be afraid of trying new things, and in Malaimare, he found a willing and eager co-conspirator. “Even when he had what I thought was a crazy idea, I thought, ‘Well, it’s Francis Coppola so I better try it,'” Malaimare told IndieWire. “Then you try it and realize how much better the scene looks.”

Malaimare became Coppola’s cinematographer of choice on the movies that followed: “Tetro,” “Twixt,” and now “Megalopolis,” all of them self-financed experiments with which Coppola has attempted to find his own unique style after over 60 years of filmmaking. On “Megalopolis,” Coppola...

One of the most controversial movies of the year is certainly Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Not only did Coppola spend decades putting together his futuristic fable, but he also sunk a chunk of his personal fortune into the $100 million-plus epic, only to have it met with jeers from many (but not all) critics following its screenings at Cannes, TIFF and more.

To be sure, this isn’t even close to the first time Coppola’s flirted with disaster as a filmmaker. While The Godfather 1 & 2, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are rightly regarded as all-timers, Coppola had a massive flop with One from the Heart, a movie that plunged him into bankruptcy, as well as The Cotton Club (which I kinda like), Tucker, Jack, Twixt, and more than a few others.

Over on Rotten Tomatoes, Megalopolis has split critics right down the middle, earning a 50% Tomato-meter score, while the audience...

October 25 will mark 62 years since the release of the first film directed by Francis Ford Coppola: “Come on Out” (later retitled “Tonight for Sure”), a re-edited feature version of three different shorter nudie films he made while a film student at UCLA. It debuted in 1962, right in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis.

With “Megalopolis” opening, he likely has the longest feature film directorial career ever, ahead of Manoel de Oliveira (61 years), Jean-Luc Godard (58), Jerzy Skolimowsky (58), and Frederick Wiseman (56). Clint Eastwood, whose latest film “Juror #2” premieres next month, spans a mere 53 as a director.

To sustain a career that long necessitates a lot of success, which Coppola has had, led by “The Godfather.” But it has been a perilous journey, elongated (“Megalopolis” the most extreme) by his willingness to spend money to keep directing. Of note, his last studio-financed film was “The Rainmaker,” 27 years — and nearly half his career — ago.

The cinematic event of the year is finally upon us now that Francis Ford Coppola's (presumable) swan song "Megalopolis" is playing in theaters, although the overall reactions couldn't be more mixed. In terms of pure drama, the months-long lead up to its release might go down as something just as shocking and over the top as the film itself has been described. Long before the general public ever set eyes upon this passion project about the rise and fall of an empire, the internet has been packed with headlines about behind-the-scenes troubles, alleged sexual harassment, and even a bizarre controversy resulting from AI-generated review pull-quotes.

It's been a wild saga to get to this point, and that's without even getting into the actual reviews of the film. /Film's Chris Evangelista ended up more on the mixed-positive side of the debate in his "Megalopolis" review, calling it a "sprawling, confusing,...

As ambitious as Megalopolis is, one factor that Francis Ford Coppola wanted to push even further was the fact that he included a scene that featured a “live theater” component in which a person from the audience would stand in front of the screen and briefly interact with Adam Driver‘s character on screen. Coppola instituted this unique fourth wall-break at the Cannes screenings and certain IMAX presentations have also played out the scene with a microphone set up at the foot of the screen and the picture shrinking to a size so that Driver’s character can make somewhat eye contact with the person in the theater.

Obviously, it would be a monumental task for every single theater screening to incorporate a plant in the audience to bring this moment to life, but IndieWire reports that over 20 markets in North America will feature this live participant component to the film.

While “Megalopolis” was in pre-production in 2021, Francis Ford Coppola presented Amazon with a unique idea: the director asked if the company would create a customized version of Alexa to be used in specific theaters. As Coppola told The Telegraph in a new interview, audiences would have the opportunity to ask Adam Driver’s character a question about what had transpired in the movie so far — and Alexa would choose the most relevant answer from a pre-approved list.

“Imagine!” Coppola said. “You could see ‘Megalopolis’ five times in its opening week and it would be different each time! It would have been the future of the movies and ancient theater rolled into one!”

Unfortunately, things didn’t pan out due to layoffs at Amazon that resulted in thousands of jobs cut from the Alexa team, including those working on the project for “Megalopolis.” Coppola didn’t plan to move forward with...

Francis Ford Coppola made the shocking decision to fund his project Megalopolis from his own pocket through his winery. The veteran filmmaker has been trying to get the film off the ground for decades, but it has been delayed many times due to revisions and false starts.

Credits: Adam Driver in Megalopolis / Lionsgate Films

After selling a part of his winery estate, he was able to finance the movie. It was a passion project that started when he was doing 1979’s Apocalypse Now. Its ambitious plot is its selling point, but the changes in his life, according to Coppola, were what drove him to bring it finally to the screen.

Francis Ford Coppola Created His Passion Project For The Children

There is a great risk in self-supplying the budget for Megalopolis, but it is more than just a dream script now for Francis Ford Coppola. The 85-year-old director has put...

Following its recent debacle involving fabricated trailer quotes, Lionsgate’s Francis Ford Coppola epic Megalopolis has cut ties with marketing consultant Eddie Egan, sources have confirmed to Deadline.

Lionsgate declined comment. But we hear that the quotes featured in yesterday’s trailer, revealed by Vulture to be fake, were found to have been generated by AI following an investigation. The materials fell under the purview of Egan, who prior to his work as an independent consultant, held executive posts at STXfilm and assorted major studios.

In the immediate aftermath of the trailer snafu, some questioned whether the fake quotes were part of a a marketing ploy purposefully designed to keep the film in the headlines. But we’re told this couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, the situation should be looked at as a cautionary tale, as neither Egan nor Lionsgate was out to intentionally fabricate quotes. Mistakes...

In a highly unusual move, Lionsgate is pulling its new trailer for Megalopolis, unveiled early this morning.

The decision comes following controversy over critic quotes featured in the trailer, which digging by Vulture and other outlets revealed to be fabricated.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” said a spokesperson for the studio. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

The quotes featured in the Megalopolis trailer highlight previous “criticisms” of Coppola’s now-iconic works, such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, by such famed critics as The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. With reference to The Godfather, for instance, Kael is quoted as calling the film “diminished by its artsiness,” with Sarris referring to it as a “sloppy self-indulgent movie.

Francis Ford Coppola has done the seemingly impossible and secured North American distribution for his ambitious "Megalopolis." The film, which Coppola self-financed, wrote, directed, and produced, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, but hadn't secured a North American distributor by the end of the event. Now, however, Lionsgate Studios has confirmed that it will distribute "Megalopolis" in the U.S. and Canada.

IMAX already confirmed it would show the $120 million feature, and the film had previously secured several international distribution deals. But Coppola has now secured full theatrical distribution in the U.S. and Canada too, ensuring the masses will be able to witness a film that The Telegraph desribed as "'Succession' crossed with 'Batman Forever' and a lava lamp." Lionsgate confirmed it plans to release the film theatrically on September 27, 2024, and that it will also oversee the film's distribution on home entertainment platforms.

This is quite the coup for Coppola,...

Fred Roos, the longtime producing and casting collaborator of Francis Ford Coppola, has died at age 89.

Roos famously found Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford, launching both actors’ respective careers, and even helped cast Carrie Fisher alongside Ford in “Star Wars.” He is credited for also boosting the careers of Kirsten Dunst, Diane Keaton, Laurence Fishburne, Frederic Forest, Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage, Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Jennifer Connelly, Billy Bob Thorton, Marshall Bell, and more.

Roos later served as the casting director for Coppola’s “The Godfather,” leading auteur Coppola to deem Roos “one of the great casting talents in the last 40 years of American movies” in a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

Roos produced follow-up film “The Godfather: Part II,” “Apocalypse Now,” and Coppola’s recent “Megalopolis,” for which he also helped cast the star-studded ensemble. In 1974, both Roos and Coppola earned two Oscar...

Above: 1980 Japanese poster for Apocalypse Now. Design by Eiko Ishioka, artwork by Haruo Takino.With Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestated Megalopolis having premiered yesterday at Cannes, it's a good time to look back at the posters from his 60-year-long career. The only problem is that many posters for his films are either too well known or nothing to write home about. Like Coppola’s career itself, there are peaks and valleys—one of my very first posts for Notebook, almost exactly fifteen years ago, was about the gorgeous design for The Rain People (1969)—but a career retrospective of his posters seems like it might result in less than the sum of its parts. Yet of all his posters there are three rare Japanese designs that have always stood out as utterly extraordinary: two for Apocalypse Now (1979) and one for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).I’ve always seen these posters attributed to Eiko Ishioka,...

Francis Ford Coppola shared his thoughts on the current studio system during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his self-financed epic “Megalopolis,” saying that they might not be around much longer.

“I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt. And the job is not so much to make good movies, the job is to make sure they pay their debt obligations,” Coppola said in response to a question from Variety. “Obviously, new companies like Amazon and Apple and Microsoft, they have plenty of money, so it might be that the studios we knew for so long, some wonderful ones, are not to be here in the future anymore.”

The presser also veered into the political, with Coppola being asked if the film is a commentary on Donald Trump,...

Is Francis Ford Coppola’s controversial magnum opus “Megalopolis” any good?

The two hour and 20 minute dystopian drama certainly divided the audience at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday night with its collision course of shocking scenes: a doctored sex tape featuring Adam Driver, Shia Labeouf in drag playing a Trumpian figure and Aubrey Plaza dominating her way through a slew of men.

But there was still a huge amount of respect for iconic director Coppola, who received a four-minute standing ovation upon entering the room. After the credits rolled — which included a tribute to his late wife Eleanor — and the standing ovation began, Coppola hugged Driver and Giancarlo Esposito and got emotional as he made a speech dedicating the film to hope and family.

“Thank you all so much. It is so impossible to find words to tell you how I feel,” Coppola said, then introducing his family members in the audience.

After 13 years, Francis Ford Coppola is back in the director’s seat with a new upcoming project entitled ‘Megalopolis’. The film is scheduled to premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2024 and will break the hiatus since ‘Twixt’, Coppola’s latest release in 2011. Not only is ‘Megalopolis’ scheduled to release this year, but Coppola has announced that this will not be his last film, as he is also working on developing another film. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is everything we know about Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’.

'Megalopolis' - Scrapbook To Screenplay Like many upcoming films, the plotline has remained vague. Since this film takes place in the future, there is no history we can look into or research to put together the plot. According to a first look from Vanity Fair, ‘Megalopolis’ is about “the personal, political, and romantic clashes that arise during a battle to...

Francis Ford Coppola has revealed the first look at Megalopolis, his self-funded sci-fi epic starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Labeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, and Dustin Hoffman.

A project decades in the making, Coppola financed much of the $120 million film himself. The film is set to premiere at Cannes in May, but has yet to secure a US release.

Megalopolis is described as “a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love...

When most cinephiles think of Francis Ford Coppola, they think of his miracle run in the 1970s. During that decade, he directed four films, all of them five-star masterpieces: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather, Part II, and Apocalypse Now. Or they think of embarrassments from his for-hire period, including the Robin Williams weepy Jack. Yet those five films hardly encapsulate the entire career of Francis Ford Coppola, which will likely end with the upcoming Megalopolis. Instead the best indication of Coppola as an artist and filmmaker might be found in the most recent movies he’s made, with Coppola having released three self-produced and self-financed pictures every two years between 2007 and 2011: Youth Without Youth, Twixt, and Tetro.

Although they vary in quality, and none top his work from the ’70s, this independent trio captures the experimental and romantic heart that lies at the center of Coppola’s overall oeuvre.

Are you ready for the return of the king? It's been 13 years since Francis Ford Coppola helmed a feature film — that would be 2011's weird horror flick "Twixt" — and now he's back in the director's chair to realize his dream project. In the 1980s, Coppola started writing "Megalopolis," an epic, sprawling drama that could very well be his biggest movie ever. He would tinker with the work over the years and finally start shooting second unit footage in 2001.

And then disaster struck, literally. The film's script dealt with the aftermath of a disaster that befalls New York City, and just as Coppola was gearing up to get "Megalopolis" off the ground, the 9/11 attacks changed everything. Realizing that no one at the time would be in the mood to watch a post-disaster movie set in New York, Coppola shelved the project — but he never forgot about it.

Now, the seemingly impossible...

Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" has been in the works for decades, and at last, the first clip from the film has been released ahead of its Cannes Film Festival premiere later this month. It's just two minutes long, but the film finally feels real, not like a vanished dream.

We at /Film named "Megalopolis" one of our most anticipated movies of 2024, and it should be one of yours too. It's the "Godfather" director's first film since 2011's "Twixt," and it was self-financed (meaning creative freedom for Coppola). It also boasts an incredible ensemble, led by Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito.

In "Megalopolis," a city is destroyed in a natural disaster. Idealistic urban planner Cesar (Driver) and Mayor Frank Cicero (Esposito) clash on their visions to rebuild the city, with Cicero's daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) coming between them. The first look at the film suggests it may be even...

While Hollywood has several incredible horror features already, a yet-to-be-released horror movie promises no less than a thrilling horror experience by taping into the essence of Tom Cruise’s one of the most iconic movies. Directed, written, and co-produced by Zach Cregger, Weapons, is being described as tonally similar to Cruise’s 1999 drama film Magnolia.

Tom Cruise starter Magnolia (1999)

Although, the movie’s prospects certainly seem high already, what makes it even more thrilling is that similar to Cruise’s epic, Weapons too appears to be eyeing an incredible cast. After roping in the likes of Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich is the newest edition to the cast.

Alden Ehrenreich Joins Josh Brolin-starrer Weapons

Alden Ehrenreich starred as a young Han Solo in Han Solo: A Star Wars Story

One would argue that Tom Cruise has been in several incredible movies, many of whom deserve a separate place...

Although legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is still trying to find a distributor for his decades-in-the-making new drama, “Megalopolis,” we finally have our first official look at “The Godfather” director’s brand new epic sci-fi-ish drama via Vanity Fair. It’s Coppola’s first feature-length film in nearly thirteen years, following 2011’s experimental “Twixt.”

Released via Vanity Fair, the first look from the film reveals Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel scanning the horizon atop a building in a futuristic-looking New York City,

Read More: Cannes 2024: New Films From Yorgos Lanthimos, Frances Ford Coppola, Sean Baker & Andrea Arnold

Written and produced by Coppola, the “Apocalypse Now” filmmaker first came up with the idea for the ambitious epic back in 1979 before actively developing the project in 1983.

Continue reading ‘Megalopolis’ First Look: Adam Driver & Nathalie Emmanuel Appear In First Image From Francis Ford Coppola’s Long-Awaited Epic at The Playlist.

Vertical has released the first trailer for its upcoming supernatural horror film “The Exorcism,” starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Simpkins.

According to the official logline, “The Exorcism” follows Crowe as “Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Simpkins), wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play.”

Additional cast members include Sam Worthington (“Avatar: The Way of Water”), Chloe Bailey (“Praise This”), Adam Goldberg (“The Equalizer”), David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”), Adrian Pasdar (“Near Dark”), Tracey Bonner (“The Beanie Bubble”) and Josh Warren (“Footloose”).

Joshua John Miller serves as director and co-wrote the script with his partner M.A. Fortin. “The Exorcism” marks Miller and Fortin’s second feature, after the 2015 horror comedy “The Final Girls.” They also created the USA Network drama series “Queen of the South.” Producers of “The Exorcism” include Kevin Williamson,...

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival lineup was finally revealed at the sliver of dawn on Thursday, April 11. Festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled this year’s crop of films across the many sections, from the Competition to Un Certain Regard, during a press conference beginning at 5 a.m. Et. See the full lineup below.

The 77th edition of Cannes comes to the Côte d’Azur May 14 through 25, and a few titles were already confirmed to be in the mix. There’s Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded epic “Megalopolis,” which has already screened for a rarified few in the United States to much awe and speculation over what distributor might take on Coppola’s experimental vision. For his first feature since 2011’s “Twixt,” Coppola gathered a cast including Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia Labeouf, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Schwartzman for a sci-fi vision of a ruined NYC-like metropolis.

This year’s 77th Cannes Film Festival will mark a meeting of the New Hollywood minds in France. Not only is George Lucas receiving the festival’s Honorary Palme d’Or, but filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader are in the official Competition for the first time in decades.

While Schrader has gone the route of Venice for his “lonely man in a room” trilogy — “First Reformed,” “The Card Counter,” and “Master Gardener” all premiered in Italy — he’s at Cannes this year with “Oh, Canada.” The lineup was confirmed this morning by Cannes festival director Thierry Frémaux. The contemplative drama about a tortured writer looking back on his years as a leftist who fled to Canada to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War stars Jacob Elordi, Richard Gere, and Uma Thurman. Cue the flashbulbs for a buzzy Elordi red carpet moment. The “Euphoria” breakout was last seen...

After 13 years, legendary Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola is seemingly back with a new movie, Megalopolis, which is slated to be released in late 2024, although that could still be pushed back. After a controversial outing with 2011’s Twixt, Coppola has finished his new movie, a sci-fi epic with an ensemble cast, which has been screened for distributors in the United States. As of the time of writing, not much is known about the movie, but Deadline reports that the film’s runtime is 2 hours and 13 minutes, and that is without the credits, but as Mark Fleming Jr. writes, the runtime seems “remarkably brief,” which indicates that Coppola has indeed made a great movie.

Megalopolis is an interesting story altogether, as the movie was conceived way back in 1979, while Coppola was filming Apocalypse Now, one of the greatest war movies ever made. Now, 45 years later, the movie is finally complete, as the...

Francis Ford Coppola screened his long-awaited, self-funded $120m epic Megalopolis to buyers in Los Angeles on Thursday (March 28) after years of speculation and a lengthy production schedule.

Universal’s Donna Langley and Sony’s Tom Rothman were among studio heads who according to reports mingled with the likes of Darren Aronofsky, Roger Corman, Al Pacino, Nicolas Cage and Andy Garcia in a crowd said to number more than 300 at Universal CityWalk’s Imax theatre.

The epic story stars Adam Driver as Caesar, a driven architect striving to rebuild a massive city who falls in love with Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), the...

If you could sit down with Francis Ford Coppola – one of the greatest titans and entrepreneurs in movie history – what would you ask him? His best advice for a young filmmaker? His favorite movies? Perhaps his go-to ice cream flavor? Well, the director had all that and more to share during a recent Instagram Ama session; yes, Coppola has Instagram, and yes, you can ask him anything.

First and foremost, during the Ama, Coppola was asked what his favorite movies of his daughter Sofia’s were, in which he rattled off her debut, 1999’s Virgin Suicides, 2003’s Lost in Translation, 2006’s Marie Antoinette, and 2010’s Somewhere. That’s half of her filmography – Francis is such a dad! As for his own pictures, Coppola didn’t cite The Godfather or Apocalypse Now or Jack but rather 1983’s Rumble Fish, his second S.E. Hinton movie after The Outsiders (also out in ‘83). As for other directors’ works,...

Fair Play is a 2023 thriller film written and directed by Chloe Domont. The film stars Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan, and Rich Sommer.

“Fair Play” is a movie about ambition and how a professional relationship can affect a romantic relationship. In every place, there is an expression for this that ultimately recommends the same thing: not mixing love and work.

It’s difficult not to do so when, as in this case, both protagonists work ten hours a day and have no time for anything else but the company.

Plot

Emily and Luke are engaged, attractive, and have a promising future. There’s only one problem: they work at the same company, and company protocol doesn’t accept it. The problem arises when she gets promoted and he slowly starts losing his position in the complex corporate organization.

Fair Play Review of “Fair Play”

“Fair Play” is a more or less classic thriller that,...

Could a premiere be in the offing at New York or AFI Fest?

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis has secured a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement months after it wrapped production in Atlanta in March, prompting speculation as to whether Coppola needs to do reshoots or might be angling for a festival slot.

The first film directed by Coppola in seven years stars Adam Driver – who was in Venice on Thursday for the world premiere of Ferrari, which has an interim agreement – as well as Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Forest Whitaker, and Shia Labeouf.

Sources told Screen earlier this year...

Francis Ford Coppola may very well be the greatest American filmmaker. The Godfather, an epic three-motion-picture coup, redefined gangster movies and film; Apocalypse Now remains the greatest Vietnam War allegory ever made; Bram Stoker’s Dracula is perched atop most lists of horror classics. Coppola hit every genre, created art for art’s sake, and still managed to touch the pulse of moviegoers’ needs, desires, and fantasies.

More than anything, Coppola pursues innovation. This was exemplified in Distant Vision, which presented live cinema, performed twice, broadcast live to select screening rooms in 2015 and 2016, and not included in the list. The 25-minute film was made with students, staff, and teachers at UCLA, Coppola’s alma mater.

Coppola learned his trade at the “Roger Corman Film Academy,” where fresh filmmakers graduated by finishing movies quickly with pocket change for funding. By the time Coppola sandwiched the 1974 paranoid masterpiece The Conversation between The Godfather and The Godfather,...

At a certain point you care less about world premieres and fixate mostly on a festival’s repertory slate. And even by the high standards set with Cannes Classics or NYFF Revivals is this year’s Venice Classics in a class of its own. We could start at the new cuts for three of the greatest directors ever: One from the Heart is the latest film to be given a revision by Francis Ford Coppola, following recuts of Apocalypse Now, Twixt, and Dementia 13––to say nothing of restorations like The Rain People, of which we’re hosting the New York premiere next weekend––while Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev will debut in “the reconstruction of the complete original version, which was censored before its release and has never been seen until now.” Meanwhile one of Yasujiro Ozu’s greatest films, There Was a Father, has been amended by “recent rediscovery...

Exclusive: Elle Fanning (The Great) is set to star alongside Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic that two-time Oscar nominee James Mangold is directing for Searchlight Pictures.

The film heading into production in New York this summer watches as a young Dylan (Chalamet) shakes up the music world in 1965, as he pivots to performing with an electric guitar for the first time. Fanning will play the role of Dylan’s early ’60s love interest, university student and artist Sylvie Russo.

Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York) wrote the script, with Mangold handling revisions. Dylan’s longtime manager Jeff Rosen will produce alongside Veritas Entertainment Group’s Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer and Peter Jaysen, Automatik’s Fred Berger, The Picture Company’s Alex Heineman, and Mangold. Exec producers include Dylan, as well as Automatik’s Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Andrew Rona.

Recognized thus far in...

Epic tale of politics, power and love filmed in Atlanta.

Production has wrapped in Atlanta on Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s first directorial outing in seven years which boasts a starry cast including Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Forest Whitaker, and Shia Labeouf.

Post-production is underway and according to sources the film is unlikely to be ready this year, which ends speculation that it might premiere in Cannes, Venice, New York or any other 2023 festival as a completed film.

No US distributor was attached at time of writing.

Megalopolis weaves together politics, power and love in the story of...

Filming has wrapped on the latest film from director Francis Ford Coppola, his epic “Megalopolis” starring Adam Driver. The film announced the news on the production wrap with a new Instagram account along with a photo of a truly mega-sized clapboard featuring the film’s title.

That puts a pin in what is hopefully no more drama for the film, which back in January was the subject of a media report that described the shoot as being in chaos after the departure of several of the film’s key creative talent. But both Coppola and Driver pushed back hard on that report, putting out media statements that painted “Megalopolis” as one of the finest experiences of Driver’s career. “Apocalypse Now” this was not, they argued.

“All good here! Not sure what set you’re talking about! I don’t recognize that one! I’ve been on sets that were...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products released each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Universal Monsters Bobbleheads from Neca

Neca will add four Universal Monsters to its Head Knockers line of bobbleheads in August. Priced at 34.99, Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Dracula, and The Wolf Man are made of hand-painted resin and stand 8″ tall.

The sculpts are pretty fun on these, although I’m not sure why the necks are comically long when Neca’s other bobbleheads don’t have that issue. The prototypes are pictured, so maybe they’ll iron that out before production.

B’Twixt Now and Sunrise: The Authentic Cut Blu-ray from Lionsgate

2011’s Twixt was an ambitious, if flawed, Gothic horror film from the great Francis Ford Coppola that failed to land with critics and audiences alike.

Francis Ford Coppola Photo: Emma McIntyre Cineastes jumped for joy when Francis Ford Coppola announced his intentions to sell his multi-million dollar winery to fund his long-gestating passion project, Megalopolis. But, unfortunately, there comes a time in every Francis Ford Coppola production when it becomes apparent that this is still a Francis Ford Coppola production.

Aubrey Plaza has joined the cast of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, making the production even more mega.

Aubrey Plaza joins a Megalopolis cast that also includes Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, and more. At one point, Oscar Isaac, Cate Blanchett, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Zendaya were attached. Reportedly, the late James Caan was also considered at one point. Caan, who played Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, passed away in July.

The plot synopsis: “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love.”

Filming on Megalopolis–the 83-year-old Coppola’s much-anticipated passion project–will begin this year and extend into March 2023. No release date has been set.

The road to Megalopolis has been a long one, dating back to at least the early 2000s. Production was scrapped initially after...

The cast of Francis Ford Coppola’s long-in-the-works sci-fi epic Megalopolis just got quite a bit more interesting. With Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, and Laurence Fishburne all onboard, a new addition has arrived.

Deadline reports Aubrey Plaza, coming off fine work in Emily the Criminal, has joined the epic of architecture, class struggle, and freedom conveyed on a massive metropolitan scale. With Coppola fronting the near-100 million budget, production is now confirmed to kick off this fall with distribution rights up for grabs.

Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. has also confirmed he will reteam with Coppola on the project, following Youth Without Youth, Tetro, Twixt, and the live cinema experiment Distant Vision. Along with his Coppola collaborations, he also shot The Master and The Harder They Fall.

Coppola recently called it “a love story,” adding, “A woman is divided between loyalties to two men. But not only two men.

The feature is being showcased as a work in progress at Qumra this week.

Algerian cinema has enjoyed a high profile at Cannes over the past decade, with titles making a splash including Karim Moussaoui’s Waiting For Swallows, Mounia Meddour’s Papicha and Amin Sidi-Boumédiène’s Abou Leila.

French-Algerian director Damien Ounouri is hoping to continue the trend this year with his debut feature The Last Queen, which breaks fresh ground for Algerian cinema as its first-ever full-scale costume drama. Set in the Mediterranean port city of Algiers in 1516, it revolves around the heroic female figure of Zaphira, who...

Acclaimed wine salesman and occasional Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola will not give up on his dream project "Megalopolis." The script was first written back in the 1980s but Coppola continued to tinker with it until 2001, where the September 11 attacks made any attempt at making a movie about New York City being rebuilt after a disaster a touchy subject.

Back in 2019, however, Coppola changed his mind. Despite not filming a feature since 2011's "Twixt," the director announced he was chasing his dream project once and for all. Sadly, the age of superhero movies and streamers makes it difficult for any filmmaker to...

The post Why Francis Ford Coppola is Personally Financing His Massive Movie Megalopolis appeared first on /Film.

Francis Ford Coppola went viral in 2019 after he was quoted calling Marvel movies “despicable” while supporting Martin Scorsese’s critical beliefs about comic book films hurting the film industry. Coppola later clarified that he wasn’t talking about Marvel movies specifically, saying it’s “despicable” how the film industry now values commerce over art. Speaking to GQ magazine in a recent interview, Coppola again lamented over the state of Hollywood studio films and Marvel’s monotony.

“There used to be studio films,” Coppola said. “Now there are Marvel pictures. And what is a Marvel picture? A Marvel picture is one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.”

Even studio films that Coppola considers good are somewhat similar, the director maintained. “The talented people — you could take ‘Dune,’ made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take ‘No Time to Die,...

The Head and the Heart have released “Virginia (Wind in the Night),” the second track from their upcoming album, Every Shade of Blue, out April 29 via Warner.

”Being from Virginia, for me this song represents a long and winding relationship to place — a place that is grounding,” singer Jonathan Russell said in a statement about the Jesse Shatkin-produced track. “I’m often drawing on my life through symbolism as a way into someone else’s psyche. It’s part of my search for a deeper connection without having to compare our experiences directly.

Oscar winner Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) has set up her second feature as a director with MRC Film, with production expected to kick off this summer.

Details with regard to the plot of the film, also to be penned and produced by Fennell, are being kept under wraps. Deadline understands, though, that it will tell a story of obsession. MRC Film will serve as the studio for Fennell’s latest, with Margot Robbie’s Promising Young Woman producer LuckyChap Entertainment in talks to produce. Casting is underway.

Fennell’s feature directorial debut Promising Young Woman made its world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and would ultimately bring her the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, along with noms for Best Achievement in Directing and Best Picture. Its star, Carey Mulligan was nominated for Best Actress, with editor Frédéric Thoraval also being recognized.

Prior to the success of Promising Young Woman,...

“Saturday Night Live” returned with its second batch of all-new episodes on Nov. 6 and once again, Covid-19 was the hot topic for the cold open sketch. Specifically this time, the NBC late-night sketch comedy series parodied NFL player Aaron Rodgers’ controversial comments and anti-vaccination stance and also included new cast member James Austin Johnson’s impression of Donald Trump.

Played by Pete Davidson, this fictional version of Rodgers appeared on “Justice with Jeanine Pirro,” with Cecily Strong of course reprising her beloved role as Pirro. He joined her remotely to discuss how the “woke mob” is now coming after him.

“It’s my body and my Covid. I can give it to whoever I want,” he tried to argue. He also said he never lied about his status, noting that he took all of his teammates into a huddle, “got their faces three inches from my wet mouth and told them,...

Acclaimed writer/director David Lowery joins Josh and Joe to discuss the films that inspired The Green Knight.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Green Knight (2021)

Peter Pan & Wendy (2022)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The Old Man And The Gun (2018)

A Ghost Story (2017)

Pete’s Dragon (1977)

Pete’s Dragon (2016) – Glenn Erickson’s review

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Ghost Story (1974)

Sword of the Valiant (1984)

Gawain and the Green Knight (1973)

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Masters of the Universe (1987) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Andrei Rublev (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s Muriel Awards blurb

War And Peace (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Devils (1971)

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Conjuring (2013)

Jubilee (1978)

Benedetta (2021)

Dune (1984)

Dune (2021)

Hard To Be A God (2013)

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

Moby Dick (1956) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary,...

It’s finally here. We truly never thought it would arrive for awhile. But sure enough, the first Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer has arrived. And just as you might have expected from the veil of secrecy that surrounded it, it would appear that at least Some of the crazy multiversal rumors about this movie are true.

From its MCU multiverse shattering central concept to the presence of both Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus (with hints of even more characters yet to be revealed), Spider-Man: No Way Home looks like the biggest Marvel movie since Avengers: Endgame, and seems likely to set up future MCU Phase 4 projects, most notably Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

In other words, there’s a lot to unpack here. Here’s everything we’ve found so far. Oh, and just in case you haven’t watched it yet,...

Publisher Annapurna Interactive and developer Variable State revealed Thursday that their narrative driven game, Last Stop, will release in July.

The third-person anthology game follows three characters in London whose worlds collide with supernatural forces, prompting them to investigate a mystery. The game is driven by interactive dialogue and features multiple overlapping stories with voice performances from a cast of dozens.

British developer Variable State, owned by Jonathan Burroughs, Terry Kenny and Lyndon Holland, is known for 2016’s Virginia, a silent yet story-driven experience that was nominated for best game and best debut at the 2017 BAFTA’s, among numerous ...

The Independent Gamer is a curated roundup of news from indie gaming, landing here every other Friday.

British game studio Variable State teased its upcoming chapter-based narrative adventure Last Stop during a press demo, describing the game as a dialogue-heavy “anthology story,” with points of reference, at least in terms of structure, being films like Magnolia or Short Cuts, “where you have a protagonist and multiple overlapping stories.”

The game features three playable characters and three converging stories that vary happen concurrently but vary in tone. Its set in a fictional borough of London, which developer and company co-founder Jonathan Burroughs ...