Francis Ford Coppola has changed his mind. Again. After spending months insisting that Megalopolis could only live on the big screen, and briefly releasing and then pulling the digital release, the 86-year-old filmmaker has decided his $120 million self-financed epic can finally be viewed in your living room on your home TV. Starting tomorrow, the film will be available on digital platforms, despite Coppola once swearing it would never touch a television set.
If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Back in May, the movie was pulled from every VOD service, with insiders telling The Hollywood Reporter that Coppola himself refused to make any distribution deals. “He wants it to play in theaters, the way it was intended,” one source explained. Instead of a standard rollout, he took the film on a six-city tour complete with unpredictable solo Q&As that felt as improvised as they were unfiltered.
This theatrical-first obsession wasn’t entirely surprising. Coppola has spent over three decades trying to make Megalopolis, which reimagines modern-day New York as “New Rome.” Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina, a disgraced architect determined to build a utopian city while clashing with the city’s mayor, played by Giancarlo Esposito. The cast list includes Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Jon Voight. That’s an impressive cast for a film that grossed just $14 million after its Cannes premiere.
But that didn’t stop Coppola from doubling down on his plans for Megalopolis. Reports from set claim he even fired his entire VFX team mid-production over their supposed “allegiance to the Marvel Universe mode of filmmaking.” The drama was so wild it became its own story, which is why Oscar-nominated director Mike Figgis filmed a behind-the-scenes documentary. Titled MegaDoc, it’s a combination of set footage and interviews with cast members, like Plaza, Adam Driver, and even Star Wars’ George Lucas. Utopia will release the doc on September 19, with talks underway for a theatrical pairing that would let MegaDoc screen before the feature itself.
And if you’re still not ready to watch the movie at home, Coppola has a backup plan: a graphic novel. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel is arriving in October via Abrams ComicArts. Written by Chris Ryall and illustrated by Jacob Phillips, the book reimagines the film’s themes rather than retelling them word-for-word. Coppola himself said, “I hoped the graphic novel would take its own flight, with its own artists and writer so that it would be a sibling of the film, rather than just an echo.”
Between a failed theatrical run, a disappearing act on VOD, a documentary about the chaos, and now a graphic novel, Megalopolis is quickly becoming less of a film and more of a multimedia experiment. Coppola may not have earned back his $120 million, but he’s made sure nobody will forget the movie. Or the madness.
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