With five Academy Award wins under his belt from a grand total of 14 nominations, as well as his status as the director of The Conversation, The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and Dracula to name but a small few, Francis Ford Coppola‘s reputation as one of the all-time greats of the silver screen was cemented decades ago.
However, it would also be fair to say that it’s a long time since the veteran filmmaker made anything worth shouting from the rooftops about, something that may or may not end up changing whenever Megalopolis comes to theaters. The noted enemy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is staking a whole lot on the production, not least of all the fact the majority of the $120 million budget is coming out of his own pocket.
It’s a touch on the ironic side he’s betting so much on an effects-heavy fantasy that’s even coming with a tie-in graphic novel given his disdain for Kevin Feige’s all-conquering franchise, but in an interview with Deadline, Coppola didn’t find Megalopolis to be all that much of a gamble despite its eye-watering costs.
“Oh, I didn’t do it that way. I recognized that, at my age, I didn’t have people to run all these businesses that I not only had started but was running. My children have been an enormous help in the wine and other businesses, but they have their own careers. Sofia’s not gonna suddenly run a big wine empire, or Roman.
The wine business has changed. A lot of consolidation and distributors have gotten bigger and fewer. To be successful in the wine business today, you have to be big enough to get the cooperation of the distributors. That is in the billions now, not in the hundred millions. Although my one wine company was the 13th largest in the country, it was on the edge of being unable to survive if it didn’t get bigger. At my age, I wanted it to be acquired by people I knew and liked. By combining with them, we became the fifth-largest winery.
Which means we’re in the game. In the course of that, I realized I had created a holding of value in that company, which I could go and turn into money and make the movie I wanted to make. So I won the bet. But I am grateful to be in the position to be able to make a film that haunts me and that I feel will be wonderful, that will shed light on the subject of what the future might be like and what human beings are really like. I am as happy as I could be.”
As always, the proof will be in the pudding, but as of yet there’s no release date even being hinted at for Megalopolis. Shooting didn’t wrap all that long ago, though, even if it leaves us curious to discover whether it ends up being Coppola’s shrewdest investment, or his biggest money-losing misfire yet.
