Francis Ford Coppola Sets Cast for MEGALOPOLIS with Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, and More
After 20 years of development director, Francis Ford Coppola is actually going to make his epic sci-fi dream project Megalopolis. The filmmaker has officially set its main cast and that cast includes Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, and Laurence Fishburne.
This is pretty awesome as Fishburne started his career with Coppola when he was only 14 years old in Apocalypse Now, which is pretty crazy to think about!
Coppola wrote a 212-page script and it tells the story of an architect dreaming of a utopian 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. “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition.”
Coppola also described the film as “a love story. 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 is independently financing the budget, which will be just under $100 million, and production begins this fall. Coppola also shared his thoughts on the project and what he hopes comes from it saying:
“What would make me really happy? It’s not winning a lot of Oscars because I already have a lot and maybe more than I deserve. And it’s not that I make a lot of money, although I think over time it will make a lot of money because anything that the people keep looking at and finding new things, that makes money. So somewhere down the line, way after I’m gone, all I want is for them to discuss [Megalopolis] and, is the society we’re living in the only one available to us? How can we make it better? Education, mental health? What the movie really is proposing is that utopia is not a place. It’s how can we make everything better? Every year, come up with two, three or four ideas that make it better. I would be smiling in my grave if I thought something like that happened, because people talk about what movies really mean if you give them something. If you encouraged people to discuss marriage and education and health and justice and opportunities and freedom and all these wonderful things that human beings have conceived of. And ask the question, how can we make it even better? That would be great. Because I bet you they would make it better if they had that conversation.”
When talking about the financial risk, the filmmaker said:
“What’s the worst that can happen to me? I’m going to die and be broke? I’m not going to be broke. My kids are all successful. They’re going to have this beautiful place…You’ve seen Inglenook. They’re going to have that. I’m confident that if you can make a film that people can keep getting something out of for 10, 20 or more years, you will not lose money. I look at my movies. They’re all being looked at 50 years later. The Outsiders, Dracula, they are still seen. My films, the more weird they are, the longer they seem to last. I don’t even know why.”
It’s going to be really cool and interesting to see Coppola bring his vision of this film to life. I’ll be looking forward to eventually watching it.
Source: Deadline