Francis Ford Coppola’s storied career includes iconic titles such as The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and The Outsiders, but his passion project has eluded completion. Decades in the making, Megalopolis has finally been inching closer to theaters with a cast including Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, James Remar, Talia Shire, and Jason Schwartzman.
The film’s scope is mammoth with New York City in rubble after a “devastating disaster” with an architect aiming to rebuild the Big Apple as a utopia. As for the production itself? The past handful of years have only added further chaos to getting the project off the ground. Back in January 2023, Hollywood Reporter claimed that an expanding budget and exiting crew did not bode well for this Coppola dream to hit the screen, but there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel with a film festival premiere this year.
When Does Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Come Out?
According to Variety, the movie will debut in a gala slot at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17. There, Coppola undoubtedly hopes to secure a distributor for the American Zoetrope-produced film, which Coppola has invested $100 million of his own money.
Once a producer seals a deal, then a theatrical release date should surface.
Coppola told Vanity Fair about his original genesis for the movie: “The seeds for Megalopolis were planted when as a kid I saw H.G. Wells’s Things to Come.” He added, “This 1930s Korda classic is about building the world of tomorrow, and has always been with me, first as the ‘boy scientist’ I was and later as a filmmaker.”
The film has certainly been a long time coming — 2001 is when Coppola first headed into a production office for casting and second-unit shooting, but clearly, there have been some delays. Fingers crossed for a release date soon.