The Fake Quotes in The MEGALOPOLIS Trailer Were AI Created and Lionsgate Drops Marketing Consultant

Last week, Lionsgate released a new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and it highlighted a bunch of negative reviews of the film. It was later revealed that many of those quotes were fake, and the trailer was pulled.

We have now learned that the fake quotes used in the trailer were generated using AI and Lionsgate dropped marketing consultant Eddie Egan, who was responsible for all of this.

According to Variety, it “was not Lionsgate or Egan’s intention to fabricate quotes, but was an error in properly vetting and fact-checking the phrases provided by the consultant.”

The quotes featured in the Megalopolis trailer included previous ‘criticisms’ of Coppola’s now-iconic works, such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. One says The Godfather is “diminished by its artsiness,” and another refers to it as a “sloppy self-indulgent movie.”

The whole point of this was to highlight to the polarizing criticism of Coppola’s work and how a film like Megalopolis will ultimately stand the test of time and become a classic like many of Coppola’s other films.

Egan has worked closely with Adam Fogelson, the chair of Lionsgate’s film group, for more than 20 years, and now that long working relationship has come to an end.

I get what they were trying to do, but all they needed to do was some good research to pull actual quotes from critics instead of using AI to make them up. Such a weird thing to do especially since there are a lot of real negative reviews for many of Coppola’s films.

Lionsgate previously said in a statement: “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis.’ We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

Lionsgate will release the movie on September 27th, 2024.