Listen, I know the latter half of Francis Ford Coppola’s career has been a bit iffy (to say the least), but if you’re not at least a little excited for his return, then I don’t know what to tell ya, bud! Coppola has made several bonafide masterpieces — “The Godfather” films (yes, even the third), “The Conversation,” “Apocalypse Now,” and, yep, I’ll be brave enough to say it, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” — so the prospect of him returning to make his passion project is too good to pass up. Plus, look at the cast he’s assembled here! Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire, and that’s just to name a few of the many players. Coppola self-financed the film to get it made, which means he has complete control here. Make of that what you will.
“Megalopolis” is set in New York City in the wake of a disaster. The story follows a woman torn between her father and her lover, an architect. “It’s a love story,” Coppola said in an interview. “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. 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.'”
Coppola has been open about the production via social media. At one point, he even listed a group of books that inspired the film: “Bullsh*t Jobs,” “Debt: The First 5000 Years, and “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber; “The Glass Bead Game” by Hermann Hesse; “The Chalice and the Blade” by Riane Eisler; “The Origins of Political Order” by Francis Fukuyama; “The War Lovers” by Evan Thomas; and “The Swerve” by Stephen Greenblatt.
“Megalopolis” is slated to reach theaters later in 2024.