Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-in-the-making passion project on the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC in Rome but set in a science fiction-y New York City, finally opened last Friday. It was a Mega-flopolis. The movie pulled in $4 million over the weekend in North America, a drop in the bucket of its $120 million production budget, and marketing and distribution costs that Coppola fronted himself. Because no one who read his script wanted to take on the risk of financing it. (Francis: I think that was a clue.) Call me a glass half full kind of girl, but when I saw the $4 million figure, my mind didn’t go to “Oh man, it bombed.” On the contrary, my first thought was, “How on earth did Megalopolis make that much money?!” I can’t help it, I’m just brimming with positivity. But here’s a weekend post-mortem that calls the results “disastrous” for Coppola:
The major studios wouldn’t touch “Megalopolis,” the ambitious passion project from octogenarian Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola. Now it’s clear why.
The $120-million film, which Coppola financed with his own money, is on track to open with a disastrous $4 million in ticket sales this weekend from the U.S. and Canada, according to industry estimates, making it an epic flop for the legendary director known for the “Godfather” trilogy, “Apocalypse Now” and “The Conversation.”
The 2 hr. 18 min. epic, a sort of retelling of Roman history through a satirical science fiction lens, has been an obsession of Coppola’s for decades. He shouldered the financial risk himself, taking on the production budget plus marketing and distribution costs, selling off part of his wine business to make it happen.
Coppola, 85, had proven doubters wrong before, pouring millions into the tumultuous production of “Apocalypse Now,” which ended up nominated for the best picture Oscar and grossing more than $100 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
“Megalopolis” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May to a long standing ovation but mixed reviews, with some praising the scope and ambition and others calling it a jumbled mess. The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf compared its story to Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “a funhouse image of a clashing New York City riven by money, power and race.”
The movie features a stacked cast, starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne.
But moviegoers who saw “Megalopolis” rejected it, giving it a devastating “D+” rating from the audience polling firm CinemaScore.
Lionsgate is distributing the movie for a fee, but is not carrying any of the financial risk (that’s all on Coppola). Still, the Santa Monica studio suffered a headache from the promotional campaign when it released a trailer that included fake quotes from real critics doubting some of Coppola’s classic past pictures. Lionsgate apologized and pulled the trailer.
Apart from “Megalopolis,” Lionsgate has fielded a number of bombs this year, including “Borderlands” and “The Crow.”
“Francis Ford Coppola is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers and a cherished member of our creative family. We are proud to partner with him in giving ‘Megalopolis’ the wide theatrical release it deserves,” said Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, in an emailed statement. “Like all true art, it will be viewed and judged by movie audiences over time.”
Just how apocalyptic, now, are these opening figures for Coppola? (In case Megalopolis making a 30th of its budget isn’t clear enough.) Let’s compare it to another I’m-gonna-make-this-film-no-matter-what-the-world-says movie that came out over the summer. Like Coppola, Kevin Costner also had to turn to self-financing in order to make his dream project, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter Infinity. The first installment of Horizon had an opening weekend of $11.3 million against its $100 million production budget (that Costner contributed to but did not bank entirely on his own), and that was called a bomb. So Megalopolis has managed to make Horizon’s opening look boffo, which is a legitimate achievement. Again, I see all the silver linings! Oy, mamma mia Francis! I don’t think this is the rollout he’s been envisioning for the past few decades, what with bad reviews, bad press, bad marketing, and bad turnout. If only there had been someone (or many, many of them) to counsel Coppola to leave the film, take the wine business.
Photos credit: IMAGO/RW / Avalon, Lu Chau / Wenn / Avalon, Lionel Guericolas / Avalon
Movie studios follow the money. I hate that small, independent movies with less ROI get rejected because the studios don’t believe they will make money in favor of making yet another superhero film geared toward white vid-gender males. At the same time, the fact that major movie studios said no to JLo (record label?), Kevin Costner, and FFC only to have these mega stars self-finance and flop should be a warning to other stars. These studios Are watching the bottom line and the stats and they know what is not going to make $$$.
There are lots of studios doing great work with small budgets. Not every studio is doing superhero movies. I am most excited about Nightbitch with budget $25 million. I think, these flopped projects just didn’t justify their budget and the studios were right.
Those superhero movies, and ones like Barbie or James Bond, give studios the profit to take risks on other movies though.
All major movies need to tighten their belts in the post pandemic, streaming heavy world. China gives minimal play to most western movies now (they used to be good for $20-120 million depending on size). Russia is under sanction. Europe’s economy still sucks. Many middle eastern countries won’t show sex heavy movies or ones with lgbtq themes. (Lightyear had a literal blink and you miss it same sex kiss and at least half a dozen countries banned it.)
The movies doing well are the ones $100 million and under. But too many cost $200-300 million. So even if they make a lot they could still lose money. (See the live action Little Mermaid for instance. It made $570 million which is great. But it cost $250 million. So it needed $625 million to break even.) You need a 2.5x multiplier—so double the budget plus half to get the true cost given theater share, PR, etc.
So this movie could actually wind up costing more like $300 million. Which makes its take even worse. There could be tax incentives or something but not enough. The budgets are too damn high.
When I see Adam Driver, it’s not gonna be for me.
Really, why? I think he’s a great actor.
💯 agree. One of this generation’s best.
Adam Driver is hands down my most favorite actor. Absolutely astonishing how much emotional depth he can display with the smallest of expressions. He is often criticized for taking on the “weird”, unconventional roles, but I love that he doesn’t care about mainstream success and is out there doing his thing because he loves the work. His performance in “Annette” was extraordinary.
Same. He’s incredibly talented.
He was better off donating that $120 million to charity rather than wasting it on this bomb.
I feel bad for the actors.
I’m fascinated by ancient Rome and got my first taste of the Cataline conspiracy from Mike Duncan’s great History of Rome podcast. I’d have loved a film that took us there even if it wasn’t set in the same place/time and took some liberties/artistic licence with the details but this just sounds like a bad movie before you throw in groping the extras (‘entirely for my pleasure’) and actively looking for awful men to cast because it’s so unfair when actions have consequences. Hard pass.
I would highly recommend Emma Southton’s, “A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome”, and Garrett Fagan’s two Great Courses series, “The History of Ancient Rome” and “Emperors of Rome”. All three are really accessible and interesting.
I saw a meme that was like how to figure out which showing has someone talking to the screen. What does that mean?
I don’t know specifically on that, but the people I follow online have loved the movie in a “OMG it’s so terrible hurry up and see it before it’s yanked” kind of way. It was so bad that people were yelling at the movie by the halfway mark which made the experience so much better, apparently.
@MightyMolly: “Talking to the screen” means that the audience is engaged with what they’re seeing. Like in a horror movie you start yelling “Girl, don’t you go off by yourself, you know better than that!!”. See? I know it’s a Southern thing but I never thought about other people in the US saying that too. 🤔 I talk/yell at TV shows, the movies, and especially NFL games lol. I turn into a sailor then!!
I’m sure there are people yelling at it, but there’s also a bit in the film where someone (an usher?) comes out and asks Adam Driver’s character a question, and Adam Driver responds. I don’t think they are doing it in all theaters.
FFC had originally wanted to have audiences be able to submit or vote questions in the theater, using a system like Amazon’s Alexa, and have Adam Driver’s character respond to the most common one. He wasn’t able to work this out with Amazon, so having a theater work come out and ask pre-determined question was what he ended up going with.
I don’t think it’s being done in all theaters, just some.
That’s kind of a cool concept, but I was an RHPS girl in my day. I have zero interest in seeing movies in the theater any more, though.
I’m sure there were many, many, many people telling him this was a bad idea – that’s why he had to finance every single crumb of it himself.
It’s gross but also so telling watching all the starlets pose around this proudly pervy groper. We are still not so far off from the gory glory days of Miramax.
Weinstein held women captive in hotel rooms and raped them, and it still took decades and dozens of women to bring a case. No, the marginally lesser crimes of being pervy and/or degrading to women with less power than you is not on it’s way out just yet.
“The Producers?”
Lol, but Max Bialystock cheated other people out of their money.
Vanity projects usually don’t do well.
Regardless of anything about this movie, I think it’s just really really difficult to get people to the theatre anymore. Barbenheimer was a huge exception.
Movie theatres need to lower ticket prices, work with studios to get better pricing for smaller films, and stop showing 40 minutes of commercials before a film even starts. It costs like $60 for two people to see a movie with snacks and you have to budget like three hours of time.
I agree. It’s hard to go to the movies.
I also think theaters and studios need to get creative. Like, re-release in theaters big, visual heavy movies on a regular basis. I’d enjoy seeing any of the Star Wars films in theaters again. Do marathons more often. When sequels come out, re-release the original again. I’m sure the studios would have made a bunch of money if they had re-released Dune Part 1 right before Dune Part 2 – I know I would have gone, because I hadn’t caught the first part in theaters the first go around.
Time is a very big factor with friends I spoke with. They are juggling jobs-with-different-hours, kids/elder care, continuing education, or just-living-life. They find it hard to get friends together to see a movie unless it’s something really special. As, well, since most movies hit streaming very quickly, they make a calculated decision to see in theater or stay at home.
Didn’t he have another self financed movie that bombed a decade or more ago?
And yes between Costner putting up $40M for Horizon (lousy, made it thru part 1 only) and now FFC wasting $120M on this bomb, think of how much good could have been done if they had donated these funds directly to charity.
Costner should have stuck with Yellowstone as his sawn song.
Retired in a blaze of Glory. Too late now.