Studios decline to distribute “Megalopolis”

The acclaimed director of the Godfather movies has finally finished his latest project starring Adam Driver. “Megalopolis” has been in the works for a very long time. Coppola first had the idea back in 1979.

The film was largely funded by Coppola himself, who spent a whopping $120 million on it.

Coppola is a huge name in the film industry. His family tree is a long list of recognizable names, from Nicholas Cage to Jason Schwartzman. The success of the Godfather movies established his fame forever.

It seems that studios just don’t see the hype. “Megalopolis” was screened by a number of executives in an effort to find distribution. The Hollywood Reporter cites an unnamed source in the film industry as saying, “It’s so not good, and it was so sad watching it … This is not how Coppola should end his directing career.” Whether or not this is a one-off opinion of someone misunderstanding his genius, or the truly sorrowful judgment of someone in the know will be apparent when the film premiers later this year.

The disapproval could mark a tide shift in the film industry. Netflix recently turned down an animated project by the beloved “Twin Peaks” auteur David Lynch. While hundreds of fans online have waited years for any announcement of an upcoming Lynch project, studio executives don’t really seem to care. If the individual artist was enjoying a recent moment in the limelight, that moment seems to be up.

The developing Letterboxd consumer base doesn’t seem to be able to support the projects that are specifically catered to them. The relative failure of Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid” is a good example. Personal films with niche or abstract premises are going out of vogue as quickly as they came in. Whether or not they’re good or important is irrelevant to what actually matters in the industry, box office revenue.

“Megalopolis” seems like it could be either the greatest or the worst movie of all time. The only thing that’s for sure is its massive scale.

By Luke Morris