Francis Ford Coppola is trying to quiet the storm after reports leaked that the shoot for his upcoming film Megapolis is going disastrously. On Monday, The Hollywood Reporter published an exclusive outlying the problems the shoot is running into, including delays, ballooning budgets, and the exodus of the visual and art departments. The legendary filmmaker clapped back by telling Deadline “I am on schedule and on budget, and that’s what is important to me.”
The science fiction film which he largely self-funded is around halfway done with production, with shooting taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be the Godfather director’s first film since Twixt came out in 2011 and the first mainstream film since The Rainmaker was released in 1997. With the sale of his Napa valley winery in 2021, he has received a windfall of cash, tens of millions of which he has invested into the project.
Coppola has admitted to high turnover on set. He explained that he fired the VFX department last month to keep the budget under control and instead plans to do most of the visual effects in post-production. As for the art department, they left over creative differences. Coppola summed up the moves by saying “it was basically about managing cost.”
Of course, ballooning budgets and perilous production conditions are nothing new to Coppola. He has become something of a maestro at executing under extreme pressure. This was on full display during the shooting of Apocalypse Now. The shot took place in the jungles of the Philippines. Tensions on set ran high and the budget quickly inflated. Within weeks of shooting, Coppola replaced Harvey Keitel with Martin Sheen as the lead actor. Sheen then later had a heart attack while shooting and nearly died. A typhoon also caused widespread damage and delayed production even further.
Coppola insists that Megapolis is going much smoother. He added “we’ll finish the film in spring of 2023, and we’re totally on schedule, which is hard to do on a big picture. I don’t know how many films can say that eight weeks in but we are and that’s a fact.”
Star Adam Driver jumped in by saying, “I’ve been on sets that were chaotic, and this one is far from it.”
As for the release of the film, Coppola has big plans. The director said “I’m interested in a theatrical release in theaters, and Imax theaters and I am excited about the possibility that for the first time in history, a movie could open up on the same day everywhere in the world. And that’s what my goal is.”
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