Francis Ford Coppola Is Moving Forward With His Sci-Fi Passion Project MEGALOPOLIS

Legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, The Outsiders, The Conversation) has been trying to get a film project off the ground and into production since the 80s. It a very ambitious sci-fi epic called Megalopolis.

The 212-page script tells the story of an architect dreaming of a utopic version of New York City in the near future and his battle with the conservative mayor, who has other ideas of the city. Contained within the epic are a myriad of storylines and characters. Coppola actually shot a lot of second unit footage of architecture and street sounds and scenes for the film back in the early 2000s, but the project was brought to a halt after 9/11.

The film has previously been described as follows, “The mayor is dedicated to preserving the heritage of the past, while an architect-planner is dedicated to leaping into the future. When a massive renovation project is planned for an area running from 8th Avenue to the Hudson riverbank and from 34th to 20th streets, it becomes the nexus of a battle over vision, scale and profits, involving ‘every layer of society from workers, labor unions, the man on the street to the idea men, the money men and all those involved with them,’ Coppola said.”

The filmmaker is moving forward with the project and is one step forward to making it a reality. Deadline reports that he has signed on the talent agency CAA, and they will help Coppola mount his epic project. They will arrange the financing and represent the distribution rights to Megalopolis.

When previously talking about his vision for the film, Coppola said:

“So yes, I plan this year to begin my longstanding ambition to make a major work utilizing all I have learned during my long career, beginning at age 16 doing theater, and that will be an epic on a grand scale, which I’ve entitled Megalopolis. It is unusual; it will be a production on a grand scale with a large cast. It makes use of all of my years of trying films in different styles and types culminating in what I think is my own voice and aspiration. It is not within the mainstream of what is produced now, but I am intending and wishing and in fact encouraged, to begin production this year.”

It’s been a long time since Coppola has made a movie, but I’m very excited about this and about seeing how it will turn out!