GODFATHER CAUSES FILM TO SLEEP WITH THE FISHES: Where, Oh Where, Did Megalopolis Go?

Francis Ford Coppola got a standing ovation at the Dolby Theatre on April 26. He got the AFI Life Achievement Award (see page 42), heartfelt tributes from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and George Lucas, and, toward the end of the night, a glowing speech from Adam Driver, who hailed Megalopolis — the legendary director’s $120 million self-financed, genre-bending epic that stars Driver and pulled in just $14 million during its blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run in the fall — as “a piece of art.”

What Coppola didn’t get — and apparently doesn’t want — is a distribution deal that lets anyone actually see Megalopolis on a home screen. It’s not on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes or anywhere else with a play button. It can’t even be found on DVD. For all the hosannas recently lavished on it, Megalopolis has become the most celebrated invisible movie of the year.

There is, it turns out, a (somewhat) logical explanation for the disappearing act. One of the perks of spending $120 million of your own money on a movie is getting to decide exactly how — and where — it gets seen. And according to sources close to Coppola, the last thing the 86-year-old auteur wants is for Megalopolis to be watched on a television set.

“He wants it to play in theaters, the way it was intended,” says one insider.

So, instead of a digital release, Coppola is taking the film on tour. Days after the AFI tribute, he boarded a flight to Boston for a sold-out screening at the Coolidge Theater. Later this month, he’s headed to Detroit.

It may not be the most efficient way to earn back that $120 million, but as Driver reminded the AFI crowd, commerce was never the point. “Believe me, I was there,” he said. “There was no talk about how we could make this more commercial.”

No doubt about that — Nina and I were happy to be the audience in Fort Worth in October: Megalopolis: Making Sense of Francis Ford Coppola’s Fever Dreams.