Francis Ford Coppola has been teasing up for decades on Megalopolis, his longtime passion project that is almost at the finish line. He told Vanity Fair he first grew inspiration for the film as a child when he saw H.G. Wells’s Things to Come. Coppola further explains that he wasn’t diligently working on this project for all of these years but instead collected inspiration, a.k.a. thought about the Roman Empire a lot, and gathered footage of New York City in the early 2000s, including “heartbreaking images” of September 11.
Coppola financed the $120 million budget himself, selling part of his vineyard, only growing anticipation for the movie. Megalopolis premiered at Cannes on May 17, competing for the Palme d’Or against Kinds of Kindness; Oh, Canada; and more (Sean Baker’s Anora ultimately won the prize). Below, everything we know about the movie, including the teaser trailer that arrived before its Cannes premiere and the theatrical-release date announced post-Cannes.
Who are the citizens of Megalopolis?
Adam Driver stars as Cesar, an architect who plans to rebuild the city to a sustainable utopia after an accident destroys most of Megalopolis. Opposing him is Giancarlo Esposito’s Frank Cicero, who is the mayor and doesn’t want to change a thing. In between both of them is Julia Cicero, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, who’s Frank’s daughter and Cesar’s love interest. The rest of the cast is made up of Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman, D. B. Sweeney, James Remar, Chloe Fineman, plus Coppola’s sister Talia Shire, and her son Jason Schwartzman.
Oh, one tiny major detail we forgot: Cesar can freeze time.
Okay, what do you mean he can freeze time?
In the first-look clip released on May 4 (take that, Star Wars!), Cesar (Driver) seems to almost fall to his death off of a building until he yells, “Time stop!” which is oddly reminiscent of a technique used when losing a playground game. Cesar shakes as he is frozen in mid-air and falls back into a standing position.
What about everyone else?
Based on the new teaser trailer released a few days before the movie’s premiere at Cannes, it doesn’t seem like anyone else has superhuman powers. Well, besides like the giant living statues that are dramatically falling down in the rain. Giant statues, they’re just like us! Coppola’s roman influence is peaking through as they tease gladiator races, strappy sandals, and plenty of robes as Cesar contemplates what it means to create a true utopia.
When does it come out?
Lionsgate will release the film on September 27 in theaters and Imax, IndieWire reported on June 17. No word yet on how Lionsgate will enlist hundreds of fourth-wall-breaking, in-audience interlocutors to interview Driver’s onscreen character.
