QUESTION ASKED: Francis Ford Coppola and Megalopolis: genius or flop?

This Friday sees the Cannes premiere of a film that, by rights, really ought not to exist. As the likes of its stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Dustin Hoffman and Shia LaBeouf all assemble on the Croisette, it will be its now eighty-five-year-old director, screenwriter and producer, Francis Ford Coppola, who will be the most closely watched figure of the night, if not the entire festival.

Megalopolis, the movie that they are all gathering to promote, has been Coppola’s great passion project all through his career. He first came up with the idea in 1977, began to develop it in 1983 and, finally, sold part of his wine empire a few years ago to raise the film’s $120 million budget. At every turn, it seemed somehow unlikely that he would manage to make it; there were rumors of chaos on set (something of a Coppola specialty), with the director firing the visual effects department and, in turn, the production designer and art director resigning, citing the “unstable filming environment.” To which the only riposte must surely be: did you guys not see Apocalypse Now?

Initial reviews are mixed, but many are brutal: Francis Coppola’s $120million self-funded epic Megalopolis panned as an ‘abomination’ by critics following allegations of chaos on set as crew members claim legendary director smoked marijuana in his trailer and ‘pulled young women onto his lap.’