Francis Ford Coppola has dropped the first look at his upcoming “Megalopolis,” his self-funded passion project with an all star cast that includes Adam Driver. Coppola shared a first clip from the movie on Instagram, where he also revealed the movie was meant as a gift to his late wife. She passed in April.
Coppola wrote, “Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor. I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf.”
The nearly wordless teaser clip features a cautious Driver as Cesar, who appears focused on his impending end. Driver steps towards the ledge in front of him, and just as he lifts one foot up in an apparent bid to jump, he yells, “Time, stop!”
The world around Driver freezes as he cautiously steps back toward safety.
“Megapolis” will premiere May 17 at the Cannes Film Festival. The sci-fi movie has been a decades-long dream for Coppola, who put $120 million of his own money into the movie in 2022, utilizing funds from sources including his highly successful winery.
The movie is set in a post-destruction New York-esque city. Driver’s character Cesar is an architect who often finds himself at odds with the city’s mayor, played by Giancarlo Esposito.
Coppola wrote the original script in the 1980s, and since completing it, has screened the film for friends and colleagues — to mixed reactions. In an interview with GQ, he explained of the movie, “It’s 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,” he concluded.
Coppola also addressed the money he put into the movie. As he put it, it was well worth it. “If I’m going to invest $120 million of my own money — which I’ve already done basically, I have it there, waiting to be written to make it — I want it to have a good result for humanity.”
Watch the “Megalopolis” clip in the video above.
