Update: After outcry over apparently making up quotes used in the trailer, Lionsgate has pulled it offline. “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a Lionsgate spokesman told TheWrap. “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.”
TheWrap’s original story follows below but the video is now unavailable.
Lionsgate released the new trailer to Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed epic “Megalopolis” on Wednesday ahead of its theatrical debut next month.
Written, produced and directed by Coppola, the movie is a decades-long passion project for the “Godfather” filmmaker. It was a big swing, for sure, requiring Coppola to sell off part of his winery to self-finance the film’s $120 million budget. Reviews out of the Cannes Film Festival were unkind, but this trailer uses the film’s divisiveness to its advantage, pulling (apparently fake) quotes from critics who slammed Coppola’s previous films now considered masterpieces like “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Dracula.”
Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Jason Schwartzman and Grace VanderWaal star in the ambitious drama. “Megalopolis,” which is full of allusions to the Roman Empire and oversized visual flourishes, pits an idealistic architect (Driver) against a powerful politician (Esposito) for control of a futuristic city.
In TheWrap’s review of the film, Ben Croll wrote, “This is a project of operatic pronouncements, didactic repetitions and sprawling artistic ambitions — quite a few realized, just as many not — that makes little compromise for more earthbound worries.” Sharon Waxman added, “It’s kinda ‘Batman,’ kinda ‘Gladiator,’ kinda ‘Tomorrowland’ rolled up in a smorgasbord of ideas and images and the Cannes audience didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Megalopolis” opens in theaters and IMAX on Sept. 27.
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