It’s hard to believe we will actually see Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-in-development passion project Megalopolis in the near future as production is nearing its end. With a cast featuring Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman, DB Sweeney, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Bailey Ives, Grace Vanderwaal, James Remar, and Giancarlo Esposito, the $100 million epic is now wrapping up a Georgia shoot that was on-schedule and within budget, despite what some may say.
We can now glean a few more details on the production thanks to Adam Driver, who is doing press for his forthcoming sci-fi dinosaur thriller 65. Speaking to Paste Magazine he said he’ll be taking some time off having just finished Megalopolis, with no set plans for upcoming films. “Megalopolis is one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of, with Francis [Ford Coppola] in particular,” he added. “It’s one of the best shooting experiences I’ve had. And the things that he’s made, there’s no frame of reference for it. It’s so unique and inventive and hopefully accessible by everyone. That it’s not so elusive that it’s for a certain audience, it’s for everyone. And he is everything that you hope he will be. I know his movies so much more because it’s impossible to not watch them and see him in all of them. He’s so courageous. He made it himself so he would have control over the thing it was. He kept pushing it to be as inventive as it could be.”
It’s quite exhilarating to hear Coppola is still breaking creative boundaries at the age of 83 and we look forward to seeing the results, even if it may not be until 2024. Coppola previously called it “a love story,” adding, “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.’”
As we await more details, check out dispatches from the set courtesy of Mike Figgis, who is shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary.