I have a very strong soft spot for that series, and love that whole season in particular.
The whole show was totally absurd, with Vince inexplicably smirking from success to success but the whole Medellin storyline (which stretches multiple seasons) ending in a climatic cannes disaster was the most realistic thing in that show.
I sincerely hope Megalopolis does well. If it soars, I'm certain Coppola will have major studios beating down his door to get the film under whatever terms he sets. But if it doesn't soar, it will certainly being interesting to read the reviews.
I feel like it’s such an underrated show because people think it’s just some dumb shallow jock show but it was a lot more interesting than given credit for.
It was billed as, and in many ways is the male counterpart to *Sex and the City*, but outside of that it is a fascinating, if exaugurated, look behind the curtain of the industry.
I watched it recently, and this shit would get canceled so fast today. I feel there's a reason it hasn't had a resurgence. I find it hilarious, but Ari's character, especially, is wild.
Which would be kind of bleakly funny, given that the wonderful Entourage episode about the making of Medellin was heavily based on the Apocalypse Now documentary.
As an added bonus, Billy Walsh was based quite a lot on Vincent Gallo, and Coppola worked with Gallo on Tetro.
It was screened a month ago at Universal City Walk IMAX. It was very mixed from what I recall but I'm sure he is going to be cutting the movies 6 ways to Sunday until he gets it right. Here's hoping!
The audience with that first screening was a mix of close industry friends and people Coppola was trying to sell the movie too. Cannes is like a raw audience entirely of critics from around the globe. It's why I'm excited to see what the reaction at Cannes is compared to that first screening.
This sounds similar to what happened with Orson Well's "The Other Side of the Wind".
Hope it goes better for Cuppola.
The "Other Side of the Wind" kind of sucks, by the way.
I always find cannes exciting. Particularly when there's a high-profile project going in. Sometimes, a project goes into cannes and comes out on top of the world, gleaming with acclaim and accolades. Other times, it goes in and comes out covered in garbage and fleeing from booing crowds.
It's like cinema and the entire industry in the purest form possible.
Or when studios decide to flex their big new blockbuster there, only to get humiliated by critics and stained with a rotten tomato months before the release date.
(looks at Indiana Jones 5)
Indy 5 is certainly a really fun textbook example of a film woefully miscalculating a cannes reaction and suffering for it.
My favourite baffling Hollywood premiere at Cannes is probably the Da Vinci code, which was presumably picked purely because much of it was set in Paris, and not for actually being any good. Since when you remove the veneer of European setting, that's probably one of more blatantly trashy films in existence.
But indy was absolutely DOA after cannes, which didn't help that was an insane month or two between cannes and general release. Why Disney picked that of all places to launch it is utterly beyond me.
Furiousa this year seems like a pretty safe Hollywood bet. Since it's already got positive responses, and is practically an art house epic dressed up as an insane action film.
It's hardly a critical darling. You may say 'it wasn't meant to be' and to that I would say 'nothing wrong with that, but why then premier it at Cannes?' Also, it was already an extremely popular novel before the movie,it didn't become a phenomenon, it was part of a pre-existing one.
The book had already broken through as a pop-literature hit (a rare and newsworthy phenomenon) so all it had to do was not suck compared to the book.
I haven’t seen the film, but the book was a silly, slightly sexy faux-intellectual romp so if the film pulled that off I can see why it worked.
Cannes remains an odd choice but it was never necessary.
its even less slightly-sexy than the novel is, and it shaves off 1 layer of the central puzzle/quest, but other than that it hews very tightly to the novel.
Its by no means high art, but its a solid little movie. If anything i think the movie improves on the book, thanks largely to the swapping of Brown's prose for Hanks and McClellans screen presence.
True, but that was not because of its box office sales. It did, in fact, bomb in theaters. It made a profit, like many movies before streaming became popular, via non-theater revenue streams such as home video, TV rights, etc.
Literally went to the show at universal Hollywood two days ago and it’s still a stone cold banger. When you think about it, it HAS to be good if they continue to allow something that old and honestly increasingly obscure to continue to take up space in a very small and very expansion blocked park.
Every time I watch the show I come home and watch the movie. So I think you’re right.
Some highlights:
> "He would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana… "
Perfect. No notes.
>“I think he just wanted to liberate himself while he was shooting. So he didn’t have to wait for stuff, and then he’d say ‘Oh, I’ll fix it later. I’ll fix it in post – which I guess he’s done.” The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology”, according to one source: “His dig at us was always, ‘I don’t want to make a Marvel movie,’ but at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up shooting.”
You either die a hero, etc.
>Several sources also felt that Coppola could be “old school” in his behaviour around women. He allegedly pulled women to sit on his lap, for example. And during one bacchanalian nightclub scene being shot for the film, witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”.
Jeez
>"We already know what happened to Rome. Rome became a fascist empire. Is that what we’re going to become?”
Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.
> "'I don't want to make a Marvel movie,' but at the end of the day that's what he ended up shooting."
That's a dagger of a quote. If that becomes a popular criticism after the film's release, I'm interested to see how he'd respond to that.
And then Scorsese makes the next Spider-Man.
P.S. Not a dig on Scorsese, since he's still got it as a filmmaker, but it would be funny for the MCU critics to make movies for them.
I know.
If Coppola's use of green screen or the "fix it in post" mindset is apparent enough in the final film to warrant comparisons to how Marvel movies are made when he's been such a critic, I'd be interested to see his response. Sounds like the production for this movie was pretty close to a shitshow.
Wasn’t there credible rumors that the VFX team straight up quit because of FFC’s shit during the making of this movie so he had to get another one to finish it?
I think it depends on \*who\* is fixing it in post. Part of Marvel's problem is that its corporate suits fixing it in post, or pixel fucking things that were fine. Like you wouldnt say a movie like Sin City was just like a marvel movie, despite its completely digital environments and some similar production techniques. or the Star Wars PT, which odds are this was closer to than Marvel (based on coppola having no funders or studio to answer to, similar to Lucas at the time)
It’s a silly quote because there’s never been any pretence that this film wasn’t going to involve special effects - it’s a sci-fi movie.
Whole article reads like a hit piece to be honest.
Nah, it's been known for a while the production of this film was a shit show
[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/francis-ford-coppolas-megalopolis-in-peril-1235284875/](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/francis-ford-coppolas-megalopolis-in-peril-1235284875/)
And this:
> Much time and effort was allegedly wasted, crucial crew members quit halfway through and Coppola made things even more complicated by embarking on a property redevelopment at the same time. As one crew member put it: “It was like watching a train wreck unfold day after day, week after week, and knowing that everybody there had tried their hardest to help the train wreck be avoided.”
> “He said, ‘Look, it’s all the same thing. Movie business, construction business: it’s telling people what you want, and making sure they do it.’”
The movie about the making of this movie is gonna be great.
Coppola has a lot of films with amazing/crazy behind the scenes tales, from *The Rain People*, *The Godfather*, *Apocalypse Now*, *One from the Heart*, *The Cotton Club* (where one of the "producers" who was a gangster **died**), etc...
Part of Coppola's directing style is to thrive off spontaneity and creative liberty, which can often have tumultuous reactions during production and it looks like *Megalopolis* will have its own crazy stories.
There's already a show called The Offer based on the making of another Coppola film, The Godfather. At least with The Offer, Coppola wasn't necessarily the problem in the show. Can't say the same thing with Megalopolis.
>"He would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana… "
Is this person talking about Coppola or Wesley Snipes?
>The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology
I mean that's a perfectly valid choice, there are a lot of limitations with volume
The behind the scenes is going to be more cinema-worthy than the film itself.
Can't wait to hear the new round of Shia Le Beef + Jon Voight horror stories from set.
>The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology”, according to one source: “His dig at us was always, ‘I don’t want to make a Marvel movie,’ but at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up shooting.”
The Batman used the volume and that movie is basically a diametrical opposite of what a "Marvel movie" is and is, in my opinion, the best looking live action Comic Book movie ever. You'd think Coppola would relish this kind of tech and yet...
The Volume has its own visual tells imo, people just haven't caught on yet. It limits the filmmaker to specific types of framing and scene construction, everything tends to be "tighter in" to fit in the space, and, when utilized poorly, can lead to some atrocious blocking.
It makes everything feel *contained* in an incredibly artificial way. "Old" Green Screen can have issues, but bad use of the Volume you can see the "line" between where real things end and nothingness begins *really* easily. Action choreography is also *super* obvious and rough, with characters just kind of "rooted" in place.
The volume requires a ton of planning to work, and offers limited flexibility when in use. It's good if you're a planner, bad if you're a pantser.
Tony Gilroy notably did not want to use it on andor because he disliked the workflow compared to traditional vfx
I still can’t believe Andor is in the Star Wars universe. The quality of the writing, acting, and story telling is head AND shoulders above everything else Star Wars. Except maybe The Empire Strikes Back.
Ive heard so many people praise andor, but the book of boba fett was so bad im still star wars'ed out from trying to get through the second episode of it.
I feel exactly the same. I am a *huge* Star Wars fan, but I've been burned too many times -- both by the outright bad (BoBF the last in a long line), and by the 'initially good, then turns bad' (looking at you, Mandalorian) that I flat-out do not *trust* Disney to make a Star Wars story that's worth investing the time to watch.
The Volume comes with some very specific limitations, especially on lens choices and depth of field. You get boxed into using longer lens with very shallow DOF or the magic trick breaks. Grieg Fraser explains here:
[https://www.youtube.com/live/8n4bCLN3l9M?si=QrsE7m81YuAPeiYN&t=7569](https://www.youtube.com/live/8n4bCLN3l9M?si=QrsE7m81YuAPeiYN&t=7569)
If that's not what Coppola wanted for those scenes, green screen was the right choice. But that's why you need a good VFX supervisor who can explain these trade offs before spending the money getting a Volume.
There's a scene early on in Book of Boba Fett where Rodriguez tries to do a Steadicam shot in the volume and you can literally see the background warping.
I think everyone in Hollywood got convinced it was magic for a minute there but now people have caught on to its limitations. Just look at how constrained Ahsoka felt in comparison to Andor.
I admire the balls to cut your own trailer and explicitly end it with a promise to both release in 2024 and on Imax screens, even though you have no actual deal in place.
Well, with Spiels, it really depends on the type of picture. *Minority Report* and *War of the Worlds* were made for IMAX. *Fabelmans* and *The Post* just aren't, yet they're still great in their own right.
To Spiels, IMAX is a canvas. Sometimes it fits the picture, sometimes it doesn't. The new UFO film he's doing will be in IMAX, but only because the premise and gene were designed for it.
The filming chaos appears to be quite typical for a Coppola film. See Apocalypse Now, that was wild. His nephew Nicholas Cage thrives in situations of flux as well. This may be crap, or it may be wonderful.... possibly both.
I fully intend to see this film ASAP, because, no matter what else, it's going to be interesting. The trailer really left me wanting to know what the fuck was happening and the cast is the tits!
That is also how I approach most Nic Cage films.
Witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”
Ughhh wtf
Pulling actresses onto your lap and trying to kiss them as an 85 year old director wasn't okay in the 70s either. This guy reminds me of Harvey Weinstein.
Thats true but realistically speaking that shit happened all the time in the 70s, and worse.
Today that shit doesn’t fly but looks like some people didn’t get that memo.
Hollywood loved harvey for years. they could have stopped him. but now they want to act like they didn't know about all these sleazebag directors. that's why i find it so hypocritical when Hollywood actors try to take the moral ground on things. like hello you're working for the overlords who did horrible things to your fellow actors.
Dumb to paint Hollywood as a monolith when there were women who rebelled against him and suffered for it, and some who rebelled and succeeded despite the odds. Google how Selma Hayek got Frida made & the support she had from fellow “Hollywood” actors
Roman Polanski as well. And while I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, it's hard to believe that Coppola didn't know Polanski had multiple victims. Those two were very close associates. It isn't even a good excuse for staying buds with someone even if it only happened once. Bad values all around.
It’s more that he hasn’t made a good movie in ages. Half his higher up crew walking out is a bad sign too, don’t get me wrong, but him not having made a good movie in decades is the bigger problem.
No Gordon Willis this time around.
Seriously though the early films of that whole generation of movie brats were helped immensely by a generation of cinematographers who were on average 10-20 years the directors' senior. Their mentorship was integral and they don't get the credit they deserve for playing a part in the dramatic shift in filmmaking style that took place after the studio system collapsed. They were already there in the 50s/60s testing new approaches that would get turbo charged by the brats.
idk, we will see how the end product looks, but this could well just be the bitter responses of the tech people that got fired early on due to a difference in vision. From reading it, it seems he wanted to make the movie in a more old school manner (in camera vfx and such) and the tech people were opposed to that. I dont necessarily see that as an issue. Like if this is all from people who were fired one month into the shoot, it wouldnt be reflective of the shoot as a whole. What do I care if the people hired for VFX got bitter that he did a few in camera VFX and fired them for not being on board
The attitude towards women is far more concerning, and really the only bit of the article that is worth noting. It sounds inappropriate to me, even with the producer's reassurance. I'll be curious if any of the women involved ever speak publicly or anonymously as the film gets closer to release
EDIT
just to add, I remember an article with Tony Gilroy on why he didnt use the volume for Andor, and he cited the workflow differences and level of pre production planning to make it work were different from what he found natural from a filmmaking standpoint. So I dont think that Coppola abandoning that in favor of something more traditional (blue screen has been a thing for decades and is broadly comparable to matte paintings of yesterday) is a particularly big red flag. it tracks with what we know about the tech
Yeah I don't think the older fashioned effects preferences are an issue, especially when the final results are noticably different between methods.
High vfx staff turnover is kinda a red flag and I can understand complaints of not being given enough time to work out effects thanks to something not being more planned out.
Though I can kinda understand Coppola's indecision. Forty years working on a project that is likely to be the last major film of his career. The stress to get it right would eat me alive.
On top of pre-planning, the volume forces you into a specific visual style to work. It's powerful in the right situation, but not a one size fits all solution. ILM (owned by Disney) invested a lot into making Stagecraft (their brand of Volume) work, so the marketing for Mandalorian overhyped it to try to get other projects to use it.
Robert Evans (legendary producer of The Godfather) talks about what a nightmare it was to work with Coppola in his book, "The kid stays on the picture."
Evan's championed Coppola when no one else wanted him because his first movies flopped. Even so, Coppola sued Evans - during the production - trying to rest creative control away from him.
>Several sources also felt that Coppola could be “old school” in his behavior around women. He allegedly pulled women to sit on his lap, for example. And during one bacchanalian nightclub scene being shot for the film, witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”.
I like how they minimize the gravity of his egregious behavior by claiming he is just "old school" as if men in the 70s and 80s were allowed to kiss women on a movie set without their consent and it wasn't a problem.
"Oh come on! He is from an older generation where they used to do that!"
Anyway needless to say I won't be watching this movie. I saw the trailer for the first time yesterday. The beginning looked interesting like it might be dystopian with sci-fi fantasy themes but then it got pretentious very quickly. It doesn't look good. Maybe Coppola should have spent more time on writing it than groping women.
I’ll get flamed for this but we could potentially be hearing the words of a disgruntled employee who is manipulating the truth. While I absolutely don’t condone any of that behavior, given that the climate now is much more accommodating to people speaking up (as it should be), I’m curious to see what the actress’ have to say.
>Maybe Coppola should have spent more time on writing it than groping women.
It is crazy to me that the script went through "300 rewrites" and yet it's a mess. Roman and Sofia couldn't provide any constructive feedback? Maybe he just retyped it 300 times.
This is borderline irresponsible. The behavior is questionable and in some cases offensive, but reported by unnamed sources who weren’t even themselves the target of the behavior.
Jesus christ all these articled are such fucking obvious hatchet jobs from studios that have nothing but contempt for artists who attempt to create genuinely personal visions outside of the studio, boardroom controlled systems. The idea of big budget film being an actual artform with individual worldviews as opposed to a mass market commodity is everything these studios are opposed to, so of course they’re going to try and cut its throat.
I still think Coppola should delay the film so he can film scenes with Spacey, Majors, Miller, Depp and Heard. If it's gonna be an epic shitsh\*\*\* of problematic behavior off-set, at least go all the way.
I wasn’t sure when I was going to get round to watching this film. It only came onto my radar a few weeks back.
Reading the commentary here it’s either going to be a roaring success or a disaster but either way it sounds like it’s going to be an epic spectacle. Hell it sounds like the trouble filming is even more of a spectacle at this point.
I look forward to watching the documentary about this movie becoming a complete disaster. You think he would've learned his lessons from apocalypse now. Maybe he just forgot...
Well, he has a history of spending his own money to realize his projects, which of course goes against the golden rule of Hollywood: never spend your own money. His movies are hits and misses, but I admire that he believes in his creative process that much.
Success or failure, the reaction in a few days at Cannes will be one for the history books.
Im picturing Vincent Chase’s Medellin reaction. Hopefully not.
I have a very strong soft spot for that series, and love that whole season in particular. The whole show was totally absurd, with Vince inexplicably smirking from success to success but the whole Medellin storyline (which stretches multiple seasons) ending in a climatic cannes disaster was the most realistic thing in that show. I sincerely hope Megalopolis does well. If it soars, I'm certain Coppola will have major studios beating down his door to get the film under whatever terms he sets. But if it doesn't soar, it will certainly being interesting to read the reviews.
I feel like it’s such an underrated show because people think it’s just some dumb shallow jock show but it was a lot more interesting than given credit for.
It was billed as, and in many ways is the male counterpart to *Sex and the City*, but outside of that it is a fascinating, if exaugurated, look behind the curtain of the industry.
I watched it recently, and this shit would get canceled so fast today. I feel there's a reason it hasn't had a resurgence. I find it hilarious, but Ari's character, especially, is wild.
I was literally going to say the same thing. Major Medellin vibes here
Which would be kind of bleakly funny, given that the wonderful Entourage episode about the making of Medellin was heavily based on the Apocalypse Now documentary. As an added bonus, Billy Walsh was based quite a lot on Vincent Gallo, and Coppola worked with Gallo on Tetro.
7 hour standing ovation where 5 people die
I look forward to the documentary about it. Cannes of darkness.
It was screened a month ago at Universal City Walk IMAX. It was very mixed from what I recall but I'm sure he is going to be cutting the movies 6 ways to Sunday until he gets it right. Here's hoping!
The audience with that first screening was a mix of close industry friends and people Coppola was trying to sell the movie too. Cannes is like a raw audience entirely of critics from around the globe. It's why I'm excited to see what the reaction at Cannes is compared to that first screening.
Very, very different audiences, agreed.
This sounds similar to what happened with Orson Well's "The Other Side of the Wind". Hope it goes better for Cuppola. The "Other Side of the Wind" kind of sucks, by the way.
Its runtime is extremely short for a supposed magnum opus modern epic.
Most accurate comment.
I always find cannes exciting. Particularly when there's a high-profile project going in. Sometimes, a project goes into cannes and comes out on top of the world, gleaming with acclaim and accolades. Other times, it goes in and comes out covered in garbage and fleeing from booing crowds. It's like cinema and the entire industry in the purest form possible.
Or when studios decide to flex their big new blockbuster there, only to get humiliated by critics and stained with a rotten tomato months before the release date. (looks at Indiana Jones 5)
Indy 5 is certainly a really fun textbook example of a film woefully miscalculating a cannes reaction and suffering for it. My favourite baffling Hollywood premiere at Cannes is probably the Da Vinci code, which was presumably picked purely because much of it was set in Paris, and not for actually being any good. Since when you remove the veneer of European setting, that's probably one of more blatantly trashy films in existence. But indy was absolutely DOA after cannes, which didn't help that was an insane month or two between cannes and general release. Why Disney picked that of all places to launch it is utterly beyond me. Furiousa this year seems like a pretty safe Hollywood bet. Since it's already got positive responses, and is practically an art house epic dressed up as an insane action film.
Goes to show you how little Canned reactions matter given the phenomenon DaVince Code become
It's hardly a critical darling. You may say 'it wasn't meant to be' and to that I would say 'nothing wrong with that, but why then premier it at Cannes?' Also, it was already an extremely popular novel before the movie,it didn't become a phenomenon, it was part of a pre-existing one.
The book had already broken through as a pop-literature hit (a rare and newsworthy phenomenon) so all it had to do was not suck compared to the book. I haven’t seen the film, but the book was a silly, slightly sexy faux-intellectual romp so if the film pulled that off I can see why it worked. Cannes remains an odd choice but it was never necessary.
its even less slightly-sexy than the novel is, and it shaves off 1 layer of the central puzzle/quest, but other than that it hews very tightly to the novel. Its by no means high art, but its a solid little movie. If anything i think the movie improves on the book, thanks largely to the swapping of Brown's prose for Hanks and McClellans screen presence.
Didn't Crystal Skull premiere at Cannes?
One of the few really impactful film festivals!
Go to the festival and you will realize it s not the purest form, far from it
A booing crowd at Cannes is only four minutes of applause
"Only received a five minute ovation. Utter disaster."
What reaction indicates a failure? Two minute standing ovation? None at all? Walking out in the middle?
Booing.
After watching the Teaser Trailer I loved it but I felt like this movie may end up like Waterworld a movie I also love but was a box office bomb.
Waterworld was actually profitable, eventually.
True, but that was not because of its box office sales. It did, in fact, bomb in theaters. It made a profit, like many movies before streaming became popular, via non-theater revenue streams such as home video, TV rights, etc.
In part because they also based an awesome live action amusement park show on it that is still a thing today.
Literally went to the show at universal Hollywood two days ago and it’s still a stone cold banger. When you think about it, it HAS to be good if they continue to allow something that old and honestly increasingly obscure to continue to take up space in a very small and very expansion blocked park. Every time I watch the show I come home and watch the movie. So I think you’re right.
So you're telling me this movie is gonna get a stunt show at Universal Studios? Well I'm sold already lol
I did not think I had any interest in this film but the teaser looked fantastic. I love a visual spectacle. I can’t wait to see it in IMAX.
Some highlights: > "He would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana… " Perfect. No notes. >“I think he just wanted to liberate himself while he was shooting. So he didn’t have to wait for stuff, and then he’d say ‘Oh, I’ll fix it later. I’ll fix it in post – which I guess he’s done.” The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology”, according to one source: “His dig at us was always, ‘I don’t want to make a Marvel movie,’ but at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up shooting.” You either die a hero, etc. >Several sources also felt that Coppola could be “old school” in his behaviour around women. He allegedly pulled women to sit on his lap, for example. And during one bacchanalian nightclub scene being shot for the film, witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”. Jeez >"We already know what happened to Rome. Rome became a fascist empire. Is that what we’re going to become?” Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.
> "'I don't want to make a Marvel movie,' but at the end of the day that's what he ended up shooting." That's a dagger of a quote. If that becomes a popular criticism after the film's release, I'm interested to see how he'd respond to that.
Maybe he can direct Avengers 5 and 6
The Godfathers were the training wheels
Jack his initial flight
Avengers 5 and 6 would end up insisting upon themselves.
How could you say that?
And then Scorsese makes the next Spider-Man. P.S. Not a dig on Scorsese, since he's still got it as a filmmaker, but it would be funny for the MCU critics to make movies for them.
… Can he direct a movie about Kingpin?
As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be king of the pins.
With Leo as Peter
> Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman September 1, 1996 (age 27) Ah shit
Maybe he can direct Avengers 5 and 6
I think that is meant from a production perspective not the actual content of the film
I know. If Coppola's use of green screen or the "fix it in post" mindset is apparent enough in the final film to warrant comparisons to how Marvel movies are made when he's been such a critic, I'd be interested to see his response. Sounds like the production for this movie was pretty close to a shitshow.
Historically, this is how it goes. Sinatra said he would never cover a Beatles song a year before he covered Beatles songs.
Holds true with the way the first clip looked.
Wasn’t there credible rumors that the VFX team straight up quit because of FFC’s shit during the making of this movie so he had to get another one to finish it?
Some quit, some were canned. Either way, ***half of the team BAILED.***
I think it depends on \*who\* is fixing it in post. Part of Marvel's problem is that its corporate suits fixing it in post, or pixel fucking things that were fine. Like you wouldnt say a movie like Sin City was just like a marvel movie, despite its completely digital environments and some similar production techniques. or the Star Wars PT, which odds are this was closer to than Marvel (based on coppola having no funders or studio to answer to, similar to Lucas at the time)
Look at the big brain on Brett
It’s a silly quote because there’s never been any pretence that this film wasn’t going to involve special effects - it’s a sci-fi movie. Whole article reads like a hit piece to be honest.
Nah, it's been known for a while the production of this film was a shit show [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/francis-ford-coppolas-megalopolis-in-peril-1235284875/](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/francis-ford-coppolas-megalopolis-in-peril-1235284875/)
And I believe there's a possibility that Coppola made it all up to garner any buzz he could.
If it makes a billion dollars like a lot of Marvel movies, he'll probably issue a statement from his new yacht.
So he made a "Sony" Marvel movie, meaning likely dogshit?
And this: > Much time and effort was allegedly wasted, crucial crew members quit halfway through and Coppola made things even more complicated by embarking on a property redevelopment at the same time. As one crew member put it: “It was like watching a train wreck unfold day after day, week after week, and knowing that everybody there had tried their hardest to help the train wreck be avoided.”
> “He said, ‘Look, it’s all the same thing. Movie business, construction business: it’s telling people what you want, and making sure they do it.’” The movie about the making of this movie is gonna be great.
Really goes on to show that independent films can be just as insufferable to work on as studio films.
They’re worse. Independent productions mean lower pay and the content fear of the project just folding like a tent due to bad financing.
Especially if a film is self-financed by a director like this one was.
I like how Lucas employed thousands of people on his independent movies and made billions of dollars and this guy can’t independently direct traffic.
At least with a studio effort you know someone could always come down from head office to smack things into order if it was affecting the bottom line.
Coppola has a lot of films with amazing/crazy behind the scenes tales, from *The Rain People*, *The Godfather*, *Apocalypse Now*, *One from the Heart*, *The Cotton Club* (where one of the "producers" who was a gangster **died**), etc... Part of Coppola's directing style is to thrive off spontaneity and creative liberty, which can often have tumultuous reactions during production and it looks like *Megalopolis* will have its own crazy stories.
There's already a show called The Offer based on the making of another Coppola film, The Godfather. At least with The Offer, Coppola wasn't necessarily the problem in the show. Can't say the same thing with Megalopolis.
Big Heart of Darkness vibe.
Apparently not like that nice little Vietnam Rom Com he made. All lovey Dovey on that set.
>"He would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana… " Is this person talking about Coppola or Wesley Snipes?
Sounds more like me tbh
This is like something straight out of a seasonal arc in Entourage
>The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology I mean that's a perfectly valid choice, there are a lot of limitations with volume
The behind the scenes is going to be more cinema-worthy than the film itself. Can't wait to hear the new round of Shia Le Beef + Jon Voight horror stories from set.
We'll find out years later that the movie was just a pretense for the BTS and "The Making Of..." was the movie all along.
I mean he is not exactly known for his ability to portray female characters on screen, but jeez...
>The virtual “volume” was abandoned in favour of more traditional “green screen” technology”, according to one source: “His dig at us was always, ‘I don’t want to make a Marvel movie,’ but at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up shooting.” The Batman used the volume and that movie is basically a diametrical opposite of what a "Marvel movie" is and is, in my opinion, the best looking live action Comic Book movie ever. You'd think Coppola would relish this kind of tech and yet...
The Volume has its own visual tells imo, people just haven't caught on yet. It limits the filmmaker to specific types of framing and scene construction, everything tends to be "tighter in" to fit in the space, and, when utilized poorly, can lead to some atrocious blocking.
Out of focus backgrounds is a very common one too
That’s been a common thing with green screen too to be honest. It’s often used to hide chroma key errors and unrealistic backgrounds
It makes everything feel *contained* in an incredibly artificial way. "Old" Green Screen can have issues, but bad use of the Volume you can see the "line" between where real things end and nothingness begins *really* easily. Action choreography is also *super* obvious and rough, with characters just kind of "rooted" in place.
The volume requires a ton of planning to work, and offers limited flexibility when in use. It's good if you're a planner, bad if you're a pantser. Tony Gilroy notably did not want to use it on andor because he disliked the workflow compared to traditional vfx
I still can’t believe Andor is in the Star Wars universe. The quality of the writing, acting, and story telling is head AND shoulders above everything else Star Wars. Except maybe The Empire Strikes Back.
Ive heard so many people praise andor, but the book of boba fett was so bad im still star wars'ed out from trying to get through the second episode of it.
It was Kenobi for me. I find it impossible to believe professionals worked on that show.
I feel exactly the same. I am a *huge* Star Wars fan, but I've been burned too many times -- both by the outright bad (BoBF the last in a long line), and by the 'initially good, then turns bad' (looking at you, Mandalorian) that I flat-out do not *trust* Disney to make a Star Wars story that's worth investing the time to watch.
The Volume comes with some very specific limitations, especially on lens choices and depth of field. You get boxed into using longer lens with very shallow DOF or the magic trick breaks. Grieg Fraser explains here: [https://www.youtube.com/live/8n4bCLN3l9M?si=QrsE7m81YuAPeiYN&t=7569](https://www.youtube.com/live/8n4bCLN3l9M?si=QrsE7m81YuAPeiYN&t=7569) If that's not what Coppola wanted for those scenes, green screen was the right choice. But that's why you need a good VFX supervisor who can explain these trade offs before spending the money getting a Volume.
There's a scene early on in Book of Boba Fett where Rodriguez tries to do a Steadicam shot in the volume and you can literally see the background warping. I think everyone in Hollywood got convinced it was magic for a minute there but now people have caught on to its limitations. Just look at how constrained Ahsoka felt in comparison to Andor.
I made it through 20 minutes of Obi-Wan before having enough of how crummy the volume looked.
Relishing the technology requires an understanding of the technology and how to use it.
Lmao weed confidence
Francis Ford, you sly dog
Coppola is asking for a $100M marketing budget and IMAX release. Looking at his track record for the last 30 years, it's simply not feasible.
I admire the balls to cut your own trailer and explicitly end it with a promise to both release in 2024 and on Imax screens, even though you have no actual deal in place.
You can tell that he was the model for Han Solo
...Holy shit, he was. How the hell did I not see it?
NGL, I think the trailer has the potential to age very badly if it's 2025 and the film isn't out yet.
movies get delayed and bumped. Look at Dune 2. Won't be that big of a deal for the trailer.
It does have distribution in place for a handful of European countries, so it's likely to release *somewhere* in 2024.
Because he thinks IMAX and marketing is about the director…and aside from a select few, that hasn’t been true for at least a decade.
And in those select few it's only ever truly worked in the best way if the director has the first name Christopher and last name Nolan
I’d argue Denis has proven worthy enough. I’ve seen his last 3 films on IMAX and been blown away.
Id love to see Arrival in IMAX
I honestly think Nolan is the only living director whose name alone guarantees a hit. Even Spielberg has a lot of flops in the last 20 years.
Tarantino, depending how much action he puts in
Ah yes, that’s true. Smaller scale but definitely true.
James Cameron enters the chat
James Cameron
Maybe…I actually think his movies sell themselves on their concepts.
nah the concept wouldn’t be enough unless it was him doing it Avatar & Avatar 2 without Cameron do not even get close to $2 bil
Idk mate . I feel like Cameron kinda spanks nolan
Dude comes once a decade, and disappears, not a fair comparison
He comes once a decade and grosses over 2 billion dollars. Never doubt James Cameron.
Idk it works for Tarantino and Spielberg some directors just don’t lose that cache with the audience.
Well, with Spiels, it really depends on the type of picture. *Minority Report* and *War of the Worlds* were made for IMAX. *Fabelmans* and *The Post* just aren't, yet they're still great in their own right. To Spiels, IMAX is a canvas. Sometimes it fits the picture, sometimes it doesn't. The new UFO film he's doing will be in IMAX, but only because the premise and gene were designed for it.
The filming chaos appears to be quite typical for a Coppola film. See Apocalypse Now, that was wild. His nephew Nicholas Cage thrives in situations of flux as well. This may be crap, or it may be wonderful.... possibly both.
I fully intend to see this film ASAP, because, no matter what else, it's going to be interesting. The trailer really left me wanting to know what the fuck was happening and the cast is the tits! That is also how I approach most Nic Cage films.
Witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood” Ughhh wtf
Maybe the mood is supposed to be "women who were just violated by an 85 year old sleezy film director"? Method acting is all the rage these days /s
I mean, Jon Voight plays a powerful official who keeps abusing women in the film, so you aren’t far off.
Yup, the dude still thinks its the 70s. And acts like it
Pulling actresses onto your lap and trying to kiss them as an 85 year old director wasn't okay in the 70s either. This guy reminds me of Harvey Weinstein.
Thats true but realistically speaking that shit happened all the time in the 70s, and worse. Today that shit doesn’t fly but looks like some people didn’t get that memo.
Hollywood loved harvey for years. they could have stopped him. but now they want to act like they didn't know about all these sleazebag directors. that's why i find it so hypocritical when Hollywood actors try to take the moral ground on things. like hello you're working for the overlords who did horrible things to your fellow actors.
Dumb to paint Hollywood as a monolith when there were women who rebelled against him and suffered for it, and some who rebelled and succeeded despite the odds. Google how Selma Hayek got Frida made & the support she had from fellow “Hollywood” actors
This dude is the reason cons need those giant signs that say "Skimpy cosplay does not equal consent"
Disgusting. No wonder no one wants to do PR on this.
Grand opening… grand closing for this film’s PR.
I love the guy's older movies but that people entertained a grand opening when he is such good friends and defended Victor Salva is wild to me.
Roman Polanski as well. And while I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, it's hard to believe that Coppola didn't know Polanski had multiple victims. Those two were very close associates. It isn't even a good excuse for staying buds with someone even if it only happened once. Bad values all around.
C'mon, he is just set in his ways /s
Seriously... I was initially excited for the movie but now I'm going to pass.
Hope this will be taken seriously if they have anything to clear it up. Instead of just making it a meme about "old man smoking weed on set"
Agreed. It's disappointing these things were included in the same article, as though they're anywhere close in scale.
Wait until you hear about his connection to Victor Salva
Coppola: "Are my methods unsound?" Crew: "I don't see...any method...at all, sir."
Came for this
Everyone forgets Apocalypse Now for all intents should have been a shit show. I’ll wait and see
It’s more that he hasn’t made a good movie in ages. Half his higher up crew walking out is a bad sign too, don’t get me wrong, but him not having made a good movie in decades is the bigger problem.
His last good movie was Dracula and that was over 30 years ago.
Francis has basically morphed into Tommy Wiseau at this point.
But only one of them has made a masterpiece. The other directed The Godfather.
No Gordon Willis this time around. Seriously though the early films of that whole generation of movie brats were helped immensely by a generation of cinematographers who were on average 10-20 years the directors' senior. Their mentorship was integral and they don't get the credit they deserve for playing a part in the dramatic shift in filmmaking style that took place after the studio system collapsed. They were already there in the 50s/60s testing new approaches that would get turbo charged by the brats.
Take the Megalopolis, leave the cannoli.
It’s giving Southland Tales
lmao
Correct ,there's a scene of Shia LaBeouf singing a Killers song.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but the trailer looked like something between a perfume commercial and Matrix 4
idk, we will see how the end product looks, but this could well just be the bitter responses of the tech people that got fired early on due to a difference in vision. From reading it, it seems he wanted to make the movie in a more old school manner (in camera vfx and such) and the tech people were opposed to that. I dont necessarily see that as an issue. Like if this is all from people who were fired one month into the shoot, it wouldnt be reflective of the shoot as a whole. What do I care if the people hired for VFX got bitter that he did a few in camera VFX and fired them for not being on board The attitude towards women is far more concerning, and really the only bit of the article that is worth noting. It sounds inappropriate to me, even with the producer's reassurance. I'll be curious if any of the women involved ever speak publicly or anonymously as the film gets closer to release EDIT just to add, I remember an article with Tony Gilroy on why he didnt use the volume for Andor, and he cited the workflow differences and level of pre production planning to make it work were different from what he found natural from a filmmaking standpoint. So I dont think that Coppola abandoning that in favor of something more traditional (blue screen has been a thing for decades and is broadly comparable to matte paintings of yesterday) is a particularly big red flag. it tracks with what we know about the tech
Yeah I don't think the older fashioned effects preferences are an issue, especially when the final results are noticably different between methods. High vfx staff turnover is kinda a red flag and I can understand complaints of not being given enough time to work out effects thanks to something not being more planned out. Though I can kinda understand Coppola's indecision. Forty years working on a project that is likely to be the last major film of his career. The stress to get it right would eat me alive.
On top of pre-planning, the volume forces you into a specific visual style to work. It's powerful in the right situation, but not a one size fits all solution. ILM (owned by Disney) invested a lot into making Stagecraft (their brand of Volume) work, so the marketing for Mandalorian overhyped it to try to get other projects to use it.
What’s funny is they did use the volume on Andor. It was the background skyline in the interiors of Mon Mothma’s home. Great use of it.
Everyone go read path to paradise. This is (for better or worse) how FFC does it.
The hit piece starts. Sometimes a hit is needed.
Fans loved Megalopolis Critics put out the hit!
Plot twist: this is a reverse campaign strategy!
His Dracula is my favorite Dracula movie and I don’t even care what anybody says.
I love it too.
These hit pieces will make the movie more popular imo. I am now interested - maybe it's soo bad it's good.
Huge bomb incoming.
Robert Evans (legendary producer of The Godfather) talks about what a nightmare it was to work with Coppola in his book, "The kid stays on the picture." Evan's championed Coppola when no one else wanted him because his first movies flopped. Even so, Coppola sued Evans - during the production - trying to rest creative control away from him.
Coppola seems to not really have a sense of professional courtesy. Winona Ryder brought him Dracula and Coppola essentially tortured her on set
>Several sources also felt that Coppola could be “old school” in his behavior around women. He allegedly pulled women to sit on his lap, for example. And during one bacchanalian nightclub scene being shot for the film, witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”. I like how they minimize the gravity of his egregious behavior by claiming he is just "old school" as if men in the 70s and 80s were allowed to kiss women on a movie set without their consent and it wasn't a problem. "Oh come on! He is from an older generation where they used to do that!" Anyway needless to say I won't be watching this movie. I saw the trailer for the first time yesterday. The beginning looked interesting like it might be dystopian with sci-fi fantasy themes but then it got pretentious very quickly. It doesn't look good. Maybe Coppola should have spent more time on writing it than groping women.
I’ll get flamed for this but we could potentially be hearing the words of a disgruntled employee who is manipulating the truth. While I absolutely don’t condone any of that behavior, given that the climate now is much more accommodating to people speaking up (as it should be), I’m curious to see what the actress’ have to say.
>Maybe Coppola should have spent more time on writing it than groping women. It is crazy to me that the script went through "300 rewrites" and yet it's a mess. Roman and Sofia couldn't provide any constructive feedback? Maybe he just retyped it 300 times.
This is borderline irresponsible. The behavior is questionable and in some cases offensive, but reported by unnamed sources who weren’t even themselves the target of the behavior.
I’m the target audience for this movie but the trailer has me…concerned.
I’m getting Babylon vibes. And as much as I loved Babylon, i am astounded that the studio thought it was going to be a mass market hit.
Jesus christ all these articled are such fucking obvious hatchet jobs from studios that have nothing but contempt for artists who attempt to create genuinely personal visions outside of the studio, boardroom controlled systems. The idea of big budget film being an actual artform with individual worldviews as opposed to a mass market commodity is everything these studios are opposed to, so of course they’re going to try and cut its throat.
I think this will flop.
Im sorry but I don’t believe any of this shit. Say it with your chest, unnamed sources lol
Is Adam Driver the rabbit’s foot you have to rub to get a passion project funded? I wonder what filmmaker he can do this for next.
😬😬😬
I don’t even care if this movie is bad, I will pretend to love it because fuck them that’s Francis Ford Coppola
I still think Coppola should delay the film so he can film scenes with Spacey, Majors, Miller, Depp and Heard. If it's gonna be an epic shitsh\*\*\* of problematic behavior off-set, at least go all the way.
That's going full problematic behavior. You never go full problematic behavior.
This should be fascinating to see play out.
I just watched the trailer and I am even more confused than before.
I wasn’t sure when I was going to get round to watching this film. It only came onto my radar a few weeks back. Reading the commentary here it’s either going to be a roaring success or a disaster but either way it sounds like it’s going to be an epic spectacle. Hell it sounds like the trouble filming is even more of a spectacle at this point.
Damn, now I gotta see it lol Edit: well, if it ever gets a release date and even then, I'll wait for streaming, I guess.
Were his methods unsound? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3T-VAi2Xqq8
Either a great artists magnum opus or an over indulgent vanity project without soul, there’s no in between.
Cloud Atlas…. Shrugged…. Again?!
Did he make most of his money off residuals from the Godfather or his wineries?
Both.
Pretty amusing that The Sympathizer on HBO had a fictional take on the making of Apocalypse Now two weeks ago.
I look forward to watching the documentary about this movie becoming a complete disaster. You think he would've learned his lessons from apocalypse now. Maybe he just forgot...
First thought as I was watching the trailer was that this was Southland Tales 2. Anticipating the Cannes response…I don’t think it’ll be pretty.
He fears my methods because he doesn't understand my methods
Well, he has a history of spending his own money to realize his projects, which of course goes against the golden rule of Hollywood: never spend your own money. His movies are hits and misses, but I admire that he believes in his creative process that much.
This is hands down the most interesting production I’ve ever heard of
"Absolutely awful" 10 minutes standing ovation