Francis Ford Coppola made the movie he wished to make with Megalopolis — however its astounding box workplace failure means it’ll most likely be a lot tougher for Coppola to get his subsequent one made. Megalopolis is the formidable passion undertaking that’s been rattling round Coppola’s head since the 1970s, and after half a century of iterating and pontificating, he has finally made the movie a reality by going into his personal pocket. Coppola self-funded Megalopolis’ whopping $120 million budget by promoting off half a billion dollars’ worth of his vineyard business
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With Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Godfather trilogy all below his belt, Coppola’s pre-Megalopolis films had made him one of the most legendary filmmakers in Hollywood. But now that Megalopolis has finally arrived in theaters and acquired really mixed evaluations from critics and audiences alike, there’s been some dialogue about even if or not Coppola has misplaced his contact. Coppola isn’t planning to gradual down any time soon, however the box workplace failure of Megalopolis could have massive ramifications for the future of his career
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Megalopolis’ Box Office Performance Proves Why Hollywood Was So Scared Of Francis Ford Coppola’s Epic
No Studio Would Touch Megalopolis For 50 Years — And Now, It’s Obvious Why
Coppola began developing Megalopolis round the time he completed Apocalypse Now in the late ‘70s, however he struggled to get the undertaking off the ground for just about 50 years. Every time he tried to put the movie together, he couldn’t find a studio that would back it. He needed a blockbuster budget to bring his ambitions to life, however the studios were concerned that it wouldn’t bring back blockbuster box workplace returns. When Coppola made the movie with his personal money, realizing his imaginative and prescient with full inventive control, he struggled to find a distributor to put it in cinemas
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And now that Megalopolis is in theaters, it’s obvious why the studios were so cautious about the film’s business prospects. The humor is too weird to be crowd-pleasing, the limitless philosophizing is too boring for casual moviegoers, and the film’s brazen approach to incest (in extra than one of its subplots) doesn’t precisely have mainstream enchantment. When Coppola screened the movie for distributors, all they observed was a sure-fire flop. Those studios’ worries were validated when Megalopolis bombed at the box workplace on its opening weekend, bringing in simply $4 million against a budget of 30 instances that
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Megalopolis Will Make It Even More Difficult For Francis Ford Coppola To Make New Movies
Coppola Could Self-Finance More Projects, But He Won’t Have Much Support From Hollywood
It took Coppola nearly 50 years to get the financing together to make Megalopolis. But now that the movie has arrived as the director’s grandest failure, it’ll be even more durable for Coppola to get his tasks off the ground. There was at least a sliver of hope that Megalopolis would be the subsequent Godfather or Apocalypse Now, however Coppola’s subsequent movie will simply be seen as the subsequent Megalopolis. If studios were cautious about giving Coppola a distribution deal earlier than the failure of Megalopolis, they’ll be tightening the purse-strings even extra after it made $4 million in its opening weekend
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The most costly impartial movie ever made is 2017’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , with a budget of round $209 million
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Of course, Coppola could self-finance extra of his tasks like he did with Megalopolis, however it’s a lot trickier to spend $120 million of one’s personal dollars than that of a large media corporation for whom $120 million is a rounding error. Coppola had the $120 million to spend on Megalopolis, however he doesn’t have an limitless supply of thousands. To get his subsequent formidable epic in the can, he could need to rely on funding from a main Hollywood studio — and these studios won’t be fast to give him a ton of dollars after Megalopolis’ underperformance
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It’s Still Great That Francis Ford Coppola Made Megalopolis
Coppola Is One Of The Only Filmmakers Left Who’s In It Purely For The Art
Although Megalopolis will go down as one of the biggest box workplace bombs of all time, it’s still nice for the cinematic artform that Coppola made this movie. After giving audiences some of the maximum films ever made — together with four all-time classics in a row (The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now) — Coppola has extra than earned the right to make his passion undertaking the means he wished to make it. It could not have worked for everyone, however seeing one of cinema’s maximum contributors continue in this fashion is still worth celebrating on some level
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While critics and audiences can’t appear to agree on even if or not Megalopolis is a nice film, its personal director seems fairly pleased with it. Coppola gave his personal movie a five-star evaluate on Letterboxd, so he’s clearly completely happy with the final product. In a world the place filmmakers are continuously left annoyed and unfulfilled when their imaginative and prescient is compromised by meddling traders and studio executives, it’s heartening to see a director who managed to get precisely what was in his mind onto the display screen on such a huge scale
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Francis Ford Coppola Does Not Plan To Retire After Megalopolis
Coppola Has Already Teased His Next Projects Image through Lionsgate
In spite of Megalopolis’ box workplace disappointment, Coppola has shot down the possibility of retiring from filmmaking. Coppola has already teased two tasks he wants to make as a follow-up to Megalopolis. He was imprecise on the particulars of one of these films — describing it merely as “a steady sort of movie” he’d want to shoot in England with exterior financing — however he was a bit extra particular on the other one: Distant Vision. Distant Vision would chronicle “three generations of an Italian American family,” with the story revolving round the invention of television
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Coppola pronounced he’ll finance the production of Distant Vision with “ whatever Megalopolis does. ” But dependent on its opening weekend numbers, it seems unlikely that Megalopolis will bring back enough dollars to finance another movie of its size
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Coppola has described Distant Vision as “another roll of the dice,” comparable to Megalopolis, a comparability that will definitely make potential backers nervous following the reception to Megalopolis. Coppola pronounced he’ll finance the production of Distant Vision with “whatever Megalopolis does”. But dependent on its opening weekend numbers, it seems unlikely that Megalopolis will bring back enough dollars to finance another movie of its size. Even if it has good legs, there’s no means Megalopolis’ box workplace will have the 30x multiplier it needs to make back its budget
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Whatever Megalopolis’ total box workplace earnings finish up being, it’s secure to say that Distant Vision won’t have anywhere near the $120 million afforded to Megalopolis. From The Godfather Part IV to a movie adaptation of On the Road to a Dracula sequel referred to as The Van Helsing Chronicles, there are a lot of unrealized tasks that Coppola could return to after Megalopolis. There’s no scarcity of films that Coppola could dive into subsequent. Where there’s a will, there’s a means — and Coppola still has extra of his vineyard left to promote off
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