Francis Ford Coppola takes audiences deeper into “Megalopolis” with the second trailer for his epic new film, which opens in U.S. theaters via Lionsgate on September 27.
The new trailer opens with the tagline, “True genius is often misunderstood,” and Coppola takes aim at critics over the years who have panned his legendary films, from 1972’s “The Godfather” to “Apocalypse Now.”
The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews, stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight and Jason Schwartzman. Set in the wake of the collapse of a futuristic American empire with references to the fall of Rome, “Megalopolis” represents the culmination of a decades-long project by Coppola, who began working on the “Megalopolis” script in the 1980s. He believed in the film so much that he invested $120 million of his own money in it.
A month after its divisive premiere at Cannes, which nevertheless earned the film a seven-minute standing ovation, “Megalopolis” finally has a theatrical partner in Lionsgate, along with a worldwide commitment from IMAX.
Asked about the state of the film industry at Cannes — in light of the self-financed “Megalopolis” — Coppola said: “I fear that the film industry will become a matter of hiring people to pay their bills because the studios are in huge debt. The job is not to make good films, it’s to make sure they pay their bills. And obviously the new companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, they have a lot of money, so the studios that we’ve known for a long time, some of which are great, may not be around in the future.”
In his review, diverse Chief film critic Peter Debruge said the film was “positively impressive in places and downright ugly in others.”
“Megalopolis is by no means lazy,” Debruge wrote of Coppola, “and while many of the ideas didn't work out as planned, this is the kind of late-career statement fans wanted from the rebel, who never lost his faith in cinema.”
Watch the new trailer for “Megalopolis” below.
