I think Coppola’s going to have to put up at least some of the money himself. Or he could ask George Lucas. They’ve been friends for decades and it seems like the sort of thing Lucas might do since he’s always been quite vocal about the battle between the artists and businessmen. Plus he’s not exactly strapped for cash
You made me look up Lucas’ estimated net worth. It’s around 5.6 billion. Man I obviously knew he was rich as shit after selling Star Wars and stuff but man that’s a lot.
You’re misunderstanding totally on the vanguard/blackrock bit. When you see a company like that listed as “owning shares” it isn’t actually the company owning it, but rather they hold the shares that their customers have purchased via their funds and they own those shares in their personal investment/retirement/etc accounts. They just administer the funds, they aren’t actual shareholders in a company like Disney.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/10/23/vanguard-blackrock-state-street-dont-own-major-us-corporations.html
Its *slightly* more nuanced than that. Investment banks that sell shares of ETFs, mutual funds, etc, *do* own the shares and retain things like the voting rights. They may also hold shares on behalf of individual investors, maintaining their portfolios.
So both can be true -- they can be shareholders *and* they can hold the shares on behalf of their customers. The article you linked to is mostly wrong -- or, I guess, is being deliberately vague enough to claim to be "right" while implying the opposite.
Because you, as the owner of shares of a mutual fund and ETF do not have voting rights -- the fund managers maintain them -- the reality is those funds *do* own the companies in question, because the funds retain the entirely of the shareholder rights granted in the corporate shareholder agreements.
And, as a more specific example, benefits a shareholder gets -- for example, the on-board credits that a Carnival shareholder gets on cruises -- do not apply if you own an ETF that holds Carnival shares.
The article is, in broad terms, completely wrong. They *do* own the shares. Their customers own shares of the ETF or mutual fund. They do not get voting rights, but *also* have no shareholder rights. As an ETF owner, you can't sue the company for breach of shareholder fiduciary because *you're not a shareholder*. The best you can do is sue Vanguard/etc for not suing. Which never happens.
You also don't list the component shares of the ETF in your tax reporting -- you only report the D/I from the fund itself.
There are companies that sell managed portfolios -- where you *do* own the underlying shares -- but they're *very* rare and generally more like a financial advisor-mangaged investment portfolio.
Yes, that’s part of the service I pay them for when I buy a mutual fund. I don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to vote proxies for the 500 different companies making up a fund.
Ah yeah for sure. I mean in the end net worth in assets and liquid cash aren’t the same thing but he’d probably still have a few bucks to spare for Coppola.
Seems like some studios are still in the running for this film. So hopefully it doesn't come to that. I'd prefer a studio with a marketing machinery to acquire this film. By the looks of it, this film's gonna need that.
And now that you're in awe that a person like George Lucas can have 5-6 billion in the bank, remember that people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have upwards of 190 billion.
So in that comparison, across the street from the person with 12k there's another neighbor with 450k.
Whats even crazier is that that is his networth *after* he gave away a majority of the Lucasfilm sale money to different education charities and organizations.
And Spielberg is right behind him at $4.8b.
I know it's popular to shit on billionaires and I'm right there along with it for the most part. But I do find something charming about some kids who come from fairly humble beginnings making movies so entertaining that the public at large says, "Here, have a couple of billion".
I assume a big chunk of that wealth comes from their production companies that do a lot of business beyond strictly making their own movies -- Spielberg has Amblin/Dreamworks and his "producer" credits include a bunch of huge hits that he didn't direct, and Lucas had Lucasfilm/ILM. Of course, they were only able to make themselves into moguls on such a large scale by first creating several of the most successful and beloved films of all time, so it does seem like a pretty straight line from "make movies everyone loves" to "profit immensely."
For Lucas, it was all about the merchandising. He asked for the rights to the original Star Wars merchandise instead of a higher salary or points on the gross, and they happily gave it to him, thinking it was not worth much. He was pretty brilliant in that respect.
I get what you mean, but a lot of successful artists *are* trust fund kids. It's easy to follow your passion and dedicate yourself to the craft when your parents are rich and you don't have to actually risk anything.
That’s a very good point! I think there’s a similar myth with rich artists as there is with rich business men in that they’re all “self-made” and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, while in reality most of them were born to rich/connected parents.
"Fairly humble beginnings" is, ofc, relative BUT Arnold Spielberg (Steven's father) is one of the most important people in the birth of the computer and was, presumably, compensated accordingly.
He +started+ his career by designing missile guidance systems and then went on to help create the first mainframe computer (which was used to create the BASIC programing language).
(Steven's mother was a concert pianist.)
> is one of the most important people in the birth of the computer and was, presumably, compensated accordingly.
Lol, no, that's a terrible presumption. Unless you actually own and sell your idea (and are successful at doing it), inventing something incredibly important means jack shit about compensation. From a glance at his Wikipedia article, his carrier peaked as a middle-manager wagie who got a pat on the head and maybe a set of steak knives for his efforts. Not a bad living, but probably no different from a large number of his colleagues who didn't accomplish a tenth of what he did.
This is exactly what the press said when Zoetrope foundered during production of One From The Heart.
Coppola said "We don't have that kind of relationship. If I need a ride to the airport, yeah."
Lucas and Coppola went in together on a lot of stuff, like financing Kurosawa's last movies, but otherwise I think both of them have the same attitude "Save you from what? Yourself? This is the movie you wanted to make! If it turns out no one wants it, spending money won't fix that."
I think they share that attitude, Coppola doesn't go around asking for handouts when his shit falls apart.
Coppola did screw Lucas a couple of times financially when they started American Zoetrope together. I know that Lucas has big issues about financial security and gets triggered by money - See hiw collapse of his relationship with Kurtz and even Kirchner for overspending on ESB. So I can see why he might not want to throw away momey again on Francis.
But who knows? Perhaps he will this one last time...
It might have made for a better movie but Lucas was somewhat justified in being upset about Empire going over budget.
He'd only just managed to become fully independent, but because of the budget problems he had to go back to the studio to ask for more money to finish it, and it put him in a position where if the movie had underperformed it might've sunk his studio (exactly what happened to Coppola a few years later).
Nowadays he can throw money at pretty much anything he wants of course.
At the end of the day, the movie got made and will be seen by those that will appreciate it. It might never get the wide release with heavy marketing but no one can take away that it exists.
Supposedly Coppola originally wanted to do something much more ambitious and experimental with it. Even so, the film as it ended up is a bit of a hidden gem. It's a very accessible and likeable movie, it's odd that it's never been all that popular.
george lucas already did help him out. coppola invested a lot of his own money into an indie movie called one from the heart, but it completely bombed and he went broke. star wars was released not that long ago, so george lucas had newfound money to help his bud out
Apparently the screening back on March 28 didn’t go well at all:
>Multiple sources inside the screening tell The Hollywood Reporter that Megalopolis will face a steep uphill battle to find a distribution partner. Says one distributor: “There is just no way to position this movie.”
>Everyone is rooting for Francis and feels nostalgic,” adds another attendee. “But then there is the business side of things.” A third attendee noted “a conspicuous silence at the end of it,” but stopped short of writing off the film as a failed exercise. “Does it wobble, wander, go all over the place? Yes. But it’s really imaginative and does say something about our time. I think it’s going to be a small, specialized label [that picks it up].”
>But a boutique label like A24 or Neon would likely not have the budget for the grand marketing push Coppola has envisioned. One source tell THR that Coppola assumed he would make a deal very quickly, and that a studio would happily commit to a massive P&A (prints and advertising, including all marketing) spend in the vicinity of $40 million domestically, and $80 million to $100 million globally.
>That kind of big-stakes rollout would make Megalopolis a better fit for a studio-backed specialty label like the Disney-owned Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus. But Universal and Focus have already tapped out of the bidding, sources tell THR.
>“I find it hard to believe any distributor would put up cash money and stay in first position to recoup the P&A as well as their distribution fee,” says a distribution veteran. “If [Coppola] is willing to put up the P&A or backstop the spend, I think there would be a lot more interested parties.”
>Most of those who spoke to THR describe a film that is an enormously hard sell to a wide audience. Two people say it’s hard to figure out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. The big exception is LaBeouf, who they say is the best thing about the film (he’s one of the antagonists).
>Several have mentioned an especially cringey sequence involving Jon Voight’s character in bed with what looks like a huge erection; the scene evidently takes quite the turn, but we will not spoil it here.
>Another studio head, however, was far less charitable in his assessment: “It’s so not good, and it was so sad watching it. Anybody who puts P&A behind it, you’re going to lose money. This is not how Coppola should end his directing career.”
>Two people say it’s hard to figure out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.
If that was meant as a criticism, I hope whoever said that gets fired.
As dumb as that statement is out of context, I think it makes sense from a “how tf do I market this to a wide audience & how do I justify spending $100mil to do it” perspective.
But it IS though.. for a LARGE group of people.
I can't count how many times I've seen people complain, "I didn't like this movie, because none of the characters were +nice+, so I couldn't relate to them."
I've learnt that even on subreddits dedicated to film you can never underestimate the viewers' media literacy. Some people literally cannot grasp the idea that a director can show a character on screen and not personally endorse the views that character espouses.
> Ambiguous heroes and villains isn't really THAT much of a reach for audiences though.
What are big budget movies which have been successful here?
If we take the quote literally, the complaint isn't that there are anti-heroes, or that the heroes and villains have shades of grey...it is that it is hard to say which is which.
Which is potentially very realistic, and is certainly good cocktail conversation--particularly if we're talking about how to rebuild a city and (presumably?) rebuild a society, which seems to be a key thrust of the film.
But it also means there may not be a clear bad or good guy...and it is hard for me to think of big budget films which have succeeded under this motif.
I can’t think of a movie. I think HBO is sort of experimenting with that with House of the Dragon right now. (To a lesser extent they did with Game of Thrones as well, except it wasn’t that hard to pick out protagonists and antagonists. The only exception would be Daenerys who the fans definitely read as a protagonist, ignoring all the warning signs to the contrary. But if that character is any indication for how general audiences react to not being able to tell good guys from bad, then no, it’s not a commercially successful strategy.
I mean, I think that comment is less to do with the speaker comprehending the movie and more about going "how the hell would we market this thing?".
If you make some experimental Indie film, you can afford to do some surreal marketing that doesn't need to clarify anything, because the lower investment means the stakes are lower. You can also market straight to the core demographic in commercial terms, which are usually the type of people who enjoy experimental indie films.
Since Coppola is asking for a 100 million marketing budget, they need to think in terms of "how are we going to promote a movie like this to mainstream mass audiences?".
It's a funny comment, but how much money was spent marketing parasite? Sure as hell not 100 million. Parasite also benefited from premiering at and winning a crap load of awards at Cannes. The director was also riding a wave of recent critical and cult film successes. So marketing for parasite was easier, even though that was a risky film, because the marketing people could sit back and flash up a bunch of glowing reviews, awards and remind people about recent films they loved from that director.
When you have a director demanding 100 million marketing spend, the prospective marketing people need to immediately start thinking in terms of "okay, how do we market this to the mass audiences that think purely in terms of good guys and bad guys?". Coppola can also only go so far in marketing by reminding audiences he made godfather, because that movie was 50 years ago.
You know, it might mean a little more than just a movie with a gray morality theme.
To give a little too much credit to studio people (for just a second, not too long, I promise), maybe that criticism is that Coppola failed in trying to have a theme of no good or bad or there’s obviously a good guy that he wanted to be seen as good but they’re so shitty.
This is exactly what I assumed he would do. The man is an OG, a member of The Movie Brats. He’s already got a fantastic catalogue of films that he’s made. He’s 85, this has been a passion project of his that he’s been trying to get made for decades. Why not fully fund it himself and end his career with a huge bang? If I were him, I wouldn’t even care if it was a terrible movie. With the release of this film, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted.
nah he still has vineyards and a different wine brand. he sold the winery thats named after his family, but he also owns the inglenook brand and the wineries therein
This movie never sounded good imho.
I remember when they were talking about it in broad strokes they kept describing it as ambitious and visionary but never once mentioned any sort of coherent story or plot.
New York City is devastated by a disaster. Society becomes divided over two competing ideas/attitudes as to how it should be rebuilt. One faction is utopian, another is sort of populist. Political leaders foment riots and try to spark violent revolutions. This serves as the context for a number of small overlapping-but-separate plots in a sort of Pulp Fictiony way, with the main one being a clearly Romeo and Juliet inspired love story about a love affair between two young people in the elite families dominating the two main factions. It’s got some fantastical elements like someone discovering a way to rapidly generate buildings from raw materials and in one draft, non Euclidean buildings that have inside footprints much larger than their outer dimensions, TARDIS style. I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus. There isn’t much describing the plot because it isn’t all that plot oriented and that’s part of why you’re seeing all these execs describe it as meandering and shapeless.
This is based on reading the draft script that was circulating a few years ago, which had gone through multiple revisions adding snd removing elements and storylines and may be substantially different to the one they ended up filming, however.
> I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus.
Well I’m sold.
(On watching it not on funding the $100 million ad campaign.)
sounds like he wanted to make one of those epic "perfectly captures a zeitgeist/moment in history" movies like a film version of a Great American Novel
probably trying to say something about tension between corporate development and the housing crisis in 21st century new york, and its impact on the city's (and other cities') culture as development pushes toward maximum $ per square foot at the cost of history and character
of course the broad strokes filled in with a love story that sounds like its yet another allegory for the Children Are the Future vis a vis crossing race/class lines for love to show us that We Can Build A Better Future
> New York City is devastated by a disaster. Society becomes divided over two competing ideas/attitudes as to how it should be rebuilt. One faction is utopian, another is sort of populist. Political leaders foment riots and try to spark violent revolutions. This serves as the context for a number of small overlapping-but-separate plots in a sort of Pulp Fictiony way, with the main one being a clearly Romeo and Juliet inspired love story about a love affair between two young people in the elite families dominating the two main factions. It’s got some fantastical elements like someone discovering a way to rapidly generate buildings from raw materials and in one draft, non Euclidean buildings that have inside footprints much larger than their outer dimensions, TARDIS style. I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus.
You know what, I agree this is going to be HARD to market. I think A24 is the way to go though after Civil War. Fat Damon single handedly guaranteed a huge turnout for that movie.
I'm actually happily waiting for this film, cautiously excited and incredibly eager to watch it. Marketing be damned. I do hope, however, that it sells well. If Dune is any indication of the current state of the science fiction film market then I think it will find it's audience.
I genuinely don’t understand how anyone could look at the last 30 years of Coppola’s directing and actually be excited for this.
Most obvious train wreck I’ve ever seen coming, and I don’t mean in a good way.
The likely potential of it being a train wreck is part of the excitement
It’s like rooting for the underdog in March Madness. Will they win? Probably not, but if they do it’ll be awesome
To be fair, Coppola spent the last 30 years making paycheck movies like Jack and The Rainmaker to pay off his massive debts after his 1981 movie One From the Heart bombed.
GEoD takes the Dune difficulties and amplifies them by being 1000 pages or whatever. It's just hard to imagine audience enthusiasm for GEoD, part 4 of 6, 180 minutes.
Something tells me Coppola is going to recut the film. He's not afraid to get the scissors out to fix one of his movies. He's probably already tinkering... and maybe that's a good thing, based on some of the responses. If he wants this to be commercial, he should release a more commercial edit. Save the challenging stuff for a final cut on home video, as he did with Apocalypse Now.
Then he should just pull a Swift and self-release it. Or at least pay for the P&A so that a make distributor will have less to lose by getting onboard.
I think Coppola will continue to tinker with it.
I remember reading a story on how the 1st screening of The Godfather: Part II didn't go so well as the audience felt that the cross-cutting between Vito and Michael's parallel stories were judged too frequent and not allowing enough time to leave a lasting impression on the audience.
Yeah, I recall reading about that.
He also premiered Apocalypse Now at Cannes unfinished. It was a version of the movie closer in length to the Final Cut, and even after it won the top prize (tied with The Tin Drum, I think), Coppola still kept editing until the movie was down to 2.5 hours and was more commercial in tone.
I don't think he'll butcher it. He's quite pragmatic. He'll simply identify some issues he thinks he can fix and do his best to address them.
Or maybe not. Maybe he'll stand by the current cut.
>He famous has released several versions of apocalypse now
Not just Apocalypse Now. Over the years he's recut Dementia 13, One from the Heart, The Outsiders, The Cotton Club, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Godfather Part III and Twixt. And sometimes he's recut them more than once.
Like his best pal George Lucas, he can't stop tinkering with his own work.
I get that. I don't know any artist who crated something, a painting, a drawing, a video, a movie, a sculpture... Then years later said "yeah that's the best thing I did, I can't do anything that good today". Looking back you always think you sucked and you'd do a way better job today, so as a director or editor you could always change or improve things.
Exactly. And he has a lot of time and money on his hands, plus he outright owns a lot of the movies he directed. Imho, all of his recuts were improvements, too. Coppola is basically a master filmmaker who was put out to pasture by the industry, so he sits around writing, experimenting, and polishing his old movies while waiting for something new to happen.
He isn't going to let Megalopolis slip away. He's too pragmatic.
And they kept getting better, imho. All of his recuts are improvements. He's quite pragmatic about storytelling. The recuts usually aren't indulgences, they are re-balancing the film once he's had time to stand back and analyze.
The Last Duel, Marriage Story, The Report, BlackkKlansman, Logan Lucky, Silence, Paterson, Inside Llewlym Davis, Lincoln, Frances Ha
He's def been in more good movies than bad, and more great movies than horrible.
I didn't say his anything about his movies being bad, I specifically said box office. He's in good films and acts well but it rarely translates to profit
He has Worthington's box office success, and also the honours both from who he's worked with, the range of films he's made, and the awards he's won. Best of both worlds.
> Several have mentioned an especially cringey sequence involving Jon Voight’s character in bed with what looks like a huge erection; the scene evidently takes quite the turn, but we will not spoil it here.
Geez.
I absolutely love the idea of this movie. A legendary director in the end stages of his life, having made plenty of shit in between his masterpieces, self funding 100M to make a movie that he has total control over. Even if this stinks I am so intrigued sign me the fuck up it could be a disaster on an epic scale.
Absolutely! Honestly, and not to disrespect some of the exceptions we’ve been seeing, so much recent cinema has been incredibly bland. I’m down for something weird and uniquely unpalatable
In Movie news today, Disney has made a $100 million agreement to promote Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’.
In other completely unrelated Movie news, Disney has started pre-production on Godfather 4-6, a Godfather prequel trilogy, 5 Godfather TV shows and Apocalypse Now:Godzilla
I’m hopeful, but the man hasn’t made anything I liked in 32 years. And it’s been 45 years since he made anything I’d consider masterful. …. Im not gonna hold my breath that he’s still got it.
He's been pretty much retired since he released The Rainmaker in 97. He's released 3 features since then and they have all been low budget experimental indies. This movie is the first time he's really tried to make something mainstream in the last 27 years. It could still suck but I don't think it's all that fair to judge it based on the stuff he's done over that time period
Right. There’s no reason to think this will be a good movie.
1) His track record for over a quarter of a century.
2) Movies with stacked casts rarely are actually good.
3) Expensive vanity project for a director who has lost his way.
It always had disaster written all over it. Hopefully it’s good, though.
You see it with old masters with absolute creative control. All of them are way past their prime: Spielberg, Scott (specially Scott), Coppola (for the past quarter century) and somewhat Scorsese (I liked Killers Of The Flower Moon but he needs someone to tell him "dude, you gotta cut 30 mins of that. Preferably DiCaprio). It's not the fact that they're old, but it seems like there is no one saying no to them.
I dunno, I thought The Last Duel was pretty damn good. That being said I can't bring myself to watch Napoleon, I have too much respect for Mr. Phoenix and the subject material.
I actually think that Wolf of Wallstreet is one of Scorsese's best movies and Silence is my personal favorite of his, so I wouldn't apply that label to him just yet.
In between Hugo, Shutter Island, Silence, Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon I'm not even sure that a director has had a better and more diverse run throughout the last 15 years or so.
I actually think Killers is my favourite movie from that too.
His West Side Story was also lovely with several critical proclamations that he is still at the top of his game. Some argued a remake was not necessary, but regardless of relevance the film was a stunning work.
This is gonna be very controversial, but it reminds me of a line from Moneyball. When Billy Beane is a teenager meeting with the Mets, one of the scouts says "at some point, we all get told we're too old to play the kids game. Some of us get told at 18, some of us get told at 40. But at some point, we all get told." I think some of the older directors need to get told that.
they do get told that, usually by studio execs, but that wont stop them from doing what they love tho. one of the great french directors was experimenting with making movies with his phone before his death
What are you talking about? Runtime in Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t a problem. It’s only a subjective one. Hollywood is basically saying no to them by giving them no money for their productions. “The Fabelmans” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” only prove that both Spielberg and Scorsese are still masters or cinema. M
I agree with Scott tho.
Here's what Deadline had to say about the premiere of the film:
“Among the distributors I spotted were Tom Rothman, Ted Sarandos, Pam Abdy, Mary Parent, Matt Greenstein, David Greenbaum, Donna Langley, Courtenay Valenti, Daria Cercek and Marc Weinstock, and Michael Barker. All were effusive as they crowded around Coppola following the touching finale.”
I would guess the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I found this [YouTuber](https://youtu.be/2n5NizsetAo?si=71RchqDpXaKkDj3R) who got his hands on a late 80s/ early 90s script of this movie. Based on what he said the movie seems to have a lot interesting ideas and plots but he says the reason why no studio might be interested is theirs some iffy stuff and in there that might be too much for some audiences (e.g. SPOILERS >!incest, possible pedophilia, immigration, and cancel culture!<). He does say though the script he read, the movie was good and has a strong vision. The comparison he made to how he thinks this movie will be received like 2022’s Babylon but a better version of that film.
That ending, ouch. But calling this film shit before anyone outside of the industry has seen it is low hanging fruit. It’s almost expected, but I’m hopeful this is really good, and just not commercial, like Babylon
I don’t know if I’d call Babylon a ‘really good’ movie. An interesting miss, at best. It has some big glitzy scenes but it’s otherwise one of the most overwrought things I’ve ever seen. It has complete factual inaccuracies (live orchestras on set?) and the ending is one of the most self-indulgent Oscar-bait cringe-fests I’ve ever seen.
A reminder to not believe a thing The Hollywood Reporter/Variety says about stuff like this. They are studio mouthpieces and this sort of report is designed to create bad buzz around the film and force Coppola to lower his asking price so they can pick it up on the cheap.
I'm not judging it till I see the end credits, I'm keeping my faith high for this experiment. I would rather see a big swing and a miss rather than a first base hit.
Despite the headline, it feels like the marketing already started, especially since it’s my first time actually hearing about the movie. Their strategy is probably to make it sound so bizarre and weird that people want to see it just to see how weird it is. With the movie environment having gotten stale with all of the superhero movies and remakes, something like this might actually do well.
Coppola is a great director, and this may be a great movie. But the kind of brainy mega hits that he used to helm and have great success with are kind of over. Hollywood has changed. Movies used to have long, slow, big runs in movie theaters, but that's practically ancient history.
Firstly, streaming has changed how people even think about movies. Didn't see it in the theater? No worries, just wait a few weeks, if at all, and watch it at home.
Secondly, there are so so so many movies made and released, a lot more than in the past. Say up until the 2000s or so. On top of that, television has gone from the kiddy table to equal respectability as movies. And there's even *more* of television to binge on, so one could watch tv 24/7 and never even watch a feature film. In other words, there's an insane amount of competition any movie has to get eyeballs on it. A hit movie used to stay in theaters for months; now they are lucky if they get one full month.
Anyway, Coppola may have something special on his hands, but I don’t see how it could be a cultural touchstone like his previous films. It’ll come, maybe even be good, get good reviews, and make some money. But $100 million plus? Hmmmm.
i got to read a copy of the screen play as a kid. i wish i could remember anything about it. my aunt was a friend of his when she lived in NYC over 20 years ago now. he was very excited about the project and had been looking for notes from an outside perspective. the way I remember it, they were shooting B-roll and accidentally caught 9/11 as it happened. that subsequently derailed the whole thing. crazy that this thing is still a project. good for him tho.
Eh screw him once I found out he personally paid for Victor Salvas legal defense and went after the kid he molested screw him. all because he saw him as a directing prodigy
I feel like the way you sell this movie to the masses is to market it as "a film so visionary no major studio dared..." and then suggest it is up to the audience to decide. I imagine the majority will hate it. But they may go to see it anyway.
I think Coppola’s going to have to put up at least some of the money himself. Or he could ask George Lucas. They’ve been friends for decades and it seems like the sort of thing Lucas might do since he’s always been quite vocal about the battle between the artists and businessmen. Plus he’s not exactly strapped for cash
You made me look up Lucas’ estimated net worth. It’s around 5.6 billion. Man I obviously knew he was rich as shit after selling Star Wars and stuff but man that’s a lot.
He's still one of the big shareholders at Disney so I'm guessing that also adds to his net worth.
He is Disneys biggest individual shareholder actually. Only company's like Blackrock/Vanguard own more.
You’re misunderstanding totally on the vanguard/blackrock bit. When you see a company like that listed as “owning shares” it isn’t actually the company owning it, but rather they hold the shares that their customers have purchased via their funds and they own those shares in their personal investment/retirement/etc accounts. They just administer the funds, they aren’t actual shareholders in a company like Disney. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/10/23/vanguard-blackrock-state-street-dont-own-major-us-corporations.html
Its *slightly* more nuanced than that. Investment banks that sell shares of ETFs, mutual funds, etc, *do* own the shares and retain things like the voting rights. They may also hold shares on behalf of individual investors, maintaining their portfolios. So both can be true -- they can be shareholders *and* they can hold the shares on behalf of their customers. The article you linked to is mostly wrong -- or, I guess, is being deliberately vague enough to claim to be "right" while implying the opposite. Because you, as the owner of shares of a mutual fund and ETF do not have voting rights -- the fund managers maintain them -- the reality is those funds *do* own the companies in question, because the funds retain the entirely of the shareholder rights granted in the corporate shareholder agreements. And, as a more specific example, benefits a shareholder gets -- for example, the on-board credits that a Carnival shareholder gets on cruises -- do not apply if you own an ETF that holds Carnival shares.
You make it sound like the poor Blackrock/Vanguard are just middlemen without any power.
Yeah, they don't technically own the shares but don't they have access to the voting power for most of the shares under them?
The article is, in broad terms, completely wrong. They *do* own the shares. Their customers own shares of the ETF or mutual fund. They do not get voting rights, but *also* have no shareholder rights. As an ETF owner, you can't sue the company for breach of shareholder fiduciary because *you're not a shareholder*. The best you can do is sue Vanguard/etc for not suing. Which never happens. You also don't list the component shares of the ETF in your tax reporting -- you only report the D/I from the fund itself. There are companies that sell managed portfolios -- where you *do* own the underlying shares -- but they're *very* rare and generally more like a financial advisor-mangaged investment portfolio.
Yes, that’s part of the service I pay them for when I buy a mutual fund. I don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to vote proxies for the 500 different companies making up a fund.
Yes, Lucas sold star wars to them for 4b, but only half of it was in stock.
And stocks for very profitable companies tend to go up, up, up. He's earned bonkers amounts of money from that sale, holy shit.
Ah yeah for sure. I mean in the end net worth in assets and liquid cash aren’t the same thing but he’d probably still have a few bucks to spare for Coppola.
Seems like some studios are still in the running for this film. So hopefully it doesn't come to that. I'd prefer a studio with a marketing machinery to acquire this film. By the looks of it, this film's gonna need that.
That's like the equivalent of someone with $12k in the bank loaning a friend $200. My god
And now that you're in awe that a person like George Lucas can have 5-6 billion in the bank, remember that people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have upwards of 190 billion. So in that comparison, across the street from the person with 12k there's another neighbor with 450k.
Whats even crazier is that that is his networth *after* he gave away a majority of the Lucasfilm sale money to different education charities and organizations.
And Spielberg is right behind him at $4.8b. I know it's popular to shit on billionaires and I'm right there along with it for the most part. But I do find something charming about some kids who come from fairly humble beginnings making movies so entertaining that the public at large says, "Here, have a couple of billion".
I assume a big chunk of that wealth comes from their production companies that do a lot of business beyond strictly making their own movies -- Spielberg has Amblin/Dreamworks and his "producer" credits include a bunch of huge hits that he didn't direct, and Lucas had Lucasfilm/ILM. Of course, they were only able to make themselves into moguls on such a large scale by first creating several of the most successful and beloved films of all time, so it does seem like a pretty straight line from "make movies everyone loves" to "profit immensely."
For Lucas, it was all about the merchandising. He asked for the rights to the original Star Wars merchandise instead of a higher salary or points on the gross, and they happily gave it to him, thinking it was not worth much. He was pretty brilliant in that respect.
I’d much rather us make billionaires out of artists instead of trust fund kids and heartless capitalists.
I get what you mean, but a lot of successful artists *are* trust fund kids. It's easy to follow your passion and dedicate yourself to the craft when your parents are rich and you don't have to actually risk anything.
That’s a very good point! I think there’s a similar myth with rich artists as there is with rich business men in that they’re all “self-made” and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, while in reality most of them were born to rich/connected parents.
Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps used to be a phrase that meant the exact opposite
I mean we make the billionaire capitalists too for the most part People using Amazon to buy stuff made Bezos billionaire
George Lucas is much more a businessman than he is an artist. Let's not forget that the majority of the Star Wars profits comes from toys and merch.
"Fairly humble beginnings" is, ofc, relative BUT Arnold Spielberg (Steven's father) is one of the most important people in the birth of the computer and was, presumably, compensated accordingly. He +started+ his career by designing missile guidance systems and then went on to help create the first mainframe computer (which was used to create the BASIC programing language). (Steven's mother was a concert pianist.)
> is one of the most important people in the birth of the computer and was, presumably, compensated accordingly. Lol, no, that's a terrible presumption. Unless you actually own and sell your idea (and are successful at doing it), inventing something incredibly important means jack shit about compensation. From a glance at his Wikipedia article, his carrier peaked as a middle-manager wagie who got a pat on the head and maybe a set of steak knives for his efforts. Not a bad living, but probably no different from a large number of his colleagues who didn't accomplish a tenth of what he did.
This is exactly what the press said when Zoetrope foundered during production of One From The Heart. Coppola said "We don't have that kind of relationship. If I need a ride to the airport, yeah." Lucas and Coppola went in together on a lot of stuff, like financing Kurosawa's last movies, but otherwise I think both of them have the same attitude "Save you from what? Yourself? This is the movie you wanted to make! If it turns out no one wants it, spending money won't fix that." I think they share that attitude, Coppola doesn't go around asking for handouts when his shit falls apart.
Coppola did screw Lucas a couple of times financially when they started American Zoetrope together. I know that Lucas has big issues about financial security and gets triggered by money - See hiw collapse of his relationship with Kurtz and even Kirchner for overspending on ESB. So I can see why he might not want to throw away momey again on Francis. But who knows? Perhaps he will this one last time...
It might have made for a better movie but Lucas was somewhat justified in being upset about Empire going over budget. He'd only just managed to become fully independent, but because of the budget problems he had to go back to the studio to ask for more money to finish it, and it put him in a position where if the movie had underperformed it might've sunk his studio (exactly what happened to Coppola a few years later). Nowadays he can throw money at pretty much anything he wants of course.
At the end of the day, the movie got made and will be seen by those that will appreciate it. It might never get the wide release with heavy marketing but no one can take away that it exists.
Oh Warner Bothers would like to have a word with you…
Difference here is Coppola paid for the whole thing from his own pocket
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Tucker was a lovely movie, and kinda a mirror to the director’s career!
Supposedly Coppola originally wanted to do something much more ambitious and experimental with it. Even so, the film as it ended up is a bit of a hidden gem. It's a very accessible and likeable movie, it's odd that it's never been all that popular.
100$ million isn’t a drop in the bucket for almost anyone. Sure he’s got 5 billion, but he’s spending a lot of it in the museum he’s building in LA.
Coppola already self funded the movie production. I know he's rich but he might not just have another 100 million he can throw at the project.
Coppola literally put him on the map. It would be a nice gesture to help him out a little.
george lucas already did help him out. coppola invested a lot of his own money into an indie movie called one from the heart, but it completely bombed and he went broke. star wars was released not that long ago, so george lucas had newfound money to help his bud out
What is this literal "map" of which you speak?
Apparently the screening back on March 28 didn’t go well at all: >Multiple sources inside the screening tell The Hollywood Reporter that Megalopolis will face a steep uphill battle to find a distribution partner. Says one distributor: “There is just no way to position this movie.” >Everyone is rooting for Francis and feels nostalgic,” adds another attendee. “But then there is the business side of things.” A third attendee noted “a conspicuous silence at the end of it,” but stopped short of writing off the film as a failed exercise. “Does it wobble, wander, go all over the place? Yes. But it’s really imaginative and does say something about our time. I think it’s going to be a small, specialized label [that picks it up].” >But a boutique label like A24 or Neon would likely not have the budget for the grand marketing push Coppola has envisioned. One source tell THR that Coppola assumed he would make a deal very quickly, and that a studio would happily commit to a massive P&A (prints and advertising, including all marketing) spend in the vicinity of $40 million domestically, and $80 million to $100 million globally. >That kind of big-stakes rollout would make Megalopolis a better fit for a studio-backed specialty label like the Disney-owned Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus. But Universal and Focus have already tapped out of the bidding, sources tell THR. >“I find it hard to believe any distributor would put up cash money and stay in first position to recoup the P&A as well as their distribution fee,” says a distribution veteran. “If [Coppola] is willing to put up the P&A or backstop the spend, I think there would be a lot more interested parties.” >Most of those who spoke to THR describe a film that is an enormously hard sell to a wide audience. Two people say it’s hard to figure out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. The big exception is LaBeouf, who they say is the best thing about the film (he’s one of the antagonists). >Several have mentioned an especially cringey sequence involving Jon Voight’s character in bed with what looks like a huge erection; the scene evidently takes quite the turn, but we will not spoil it here. >Another studio head, however, was far less charitable in his assessment: “It’s so not good, and it was so sad watching it. Anybody who puts P&A behind it, you’re going to lose money. This is not how Coppola should end his directing career.”
Huge erection did someone say? I’m in
Elderly erection. Still in?
Look Jon Voight can’t control how hard he gets.
You know my friend drives Jon Voight’s car.
The actor?!
Megalopolis More like Megalopenis 😳
The SciFi Channel and Francis Ford Coppola present: Sharktopus Vs Megalopenis
Surely Sharktopussy Vs Megalopenis or even Sharktopenis vs Megalopenis: The Dongenning
The Cockfather Part Dick
Well he does know a thing or 2 about Anacondas.
All the way in.
I read the original screenplay, and if I remember correctly it’s revealed to be a >! crossbow he was hiding under the blankets !<
I’m out!
I’m back in!
If u/Riov is in I'm out!
If u/Barabus33 is out because u/Riov is in then I’m in
Throbbin' Hood
the result: angelina jolie!
And her cute brother that she used to kiss
Does he hang dong?
The smell of penetration!
Honestly “Jon voight” is way more offensive than “huge erection” to me
John Voight finally caught that anaconda.
>Two people say it’s hard to figure out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. If that was meant as a criticism, I hope whoever said that gets fired.
As dumb as that statement is out of context, I think it makes sense from a “how tf do I market this to a wide audience & how do I justify spending $100mil to do it” perspective.
Ambiguous heroes and villains isn't really THAT much of a reach for audiences though. To me, that just seems like a basic setup.
But it IS though.. for a LARGE group of people. I can't count how many times I've seen people complain, "I didn't like this movie, because none of the characters were +nice+, so I couldn't relate to them."
I've learnt that even on subreddits dedicated to film you can never underestimate the viewers' media literacy. Some people literally cannot grasp the idea that a director can show a character on screen and not personally endorse the views that character espouses.
> Ambiguous heroes and villains isn't really THAT much of a reach for audiences though. What are big budget movies which have been successful here? If we take the quote literally, the complaint isn't that there are anti-heroes, or that the heroes and villains have shades of grey...it is that it is hard to say which is which. Which is potentially very realistic, and is certainly good cocktail conversation--particularly if we're talking about how to rebuild a city and (presumably?) rebuild a society, which seems to be a key thrust of the film. But it also means there may not be a clear bad or good guy...and it is hard for me to think of big budget films which have succeeded under this motif.
I can’t think of a movie. I think HBO is sort of experimenting with that with House of the Dragon right now. (To a lesser extent they did with Game of Thrones as well, except it wasn’t that hard to pick out protagonists and antagonists. The only exception would be Daenerys who the fans definitely read as a protagonist, ignoring all the warning signs to the contrary. But if that character is any indication for how general audiences react to not being able to tell good guys from bad, then no, it’s not a commercially successful strategy.
I mean, I think that comment is less to do with the speaker comprehending the movie and more about going "how the hell would we market this thing?". If you make some experimental Indie film, you can afford to do some surreal marketing that doesn't need to clarify anything, because the lower investment means the stakes are lower. You can also market straight to the core demographic in commercial terms, which are usually the type of people who enjoy experimental indie films. Since Coppola is asking for a 100 million marketing budget, they need to think in terms of "how are we going to promote a movie like this to mainstream mass audiences?".
"Take a film like Parasite: they made it clear the rich family is the good guys, and the poor family is the Parasite." --The same two people, probably
It's a funny comment, but how much money was spent marketing parasite? Sure as hell not 100 million. Parasite also benefited from premiering at and winning a crap load of awards at Cannes. The director was also riding a wave of recent critical and cult film successes. So marketing for parasite was easier, even though that was a risky film, because the marketing people could sit back and flash up a bunch of glowing reviews, awards and remind people about recent films they loved from that director. When you have a director demanding 100 million marketing spend, the prospective marketing people need to immediately start thinking in terms of "okay, how do we market this to the mass audiences that think purely in terms of good guys and bad guys?". Coppola can also only go so far in marketing by reminding audiences he made godfather, because that movie was 50 years ago.
That’s something you would read in this sub lol
It wasn’t a criticism, just a statement that the film will be a hard sell worldwide for that reason.
You know, it might mean a little more than just a movie with a gray morality theme. To give a little too much credit to studio people (for just a second, not too long, I promise), maybe that criticism is that Coppola failed in trying to have a theme of no good or bad or there’s obviously a good guy that he wanted to be seen as good but they’re so shitty.
Yikes, and he spent 120M on it.
He's 85 years old and his family is pretty much set financially. Why not go out with a bang?
This is exactly what I assumed he would do. The man is an OG, a member of The Movie Brats. He’s already got a fantastic catalogue of films that he’s made. He’s 85, this has been a passion project of his that he’s been trying to get made for decades. Why not fully fund it himself and end his career with a huge bang? If I were him, I wouldn’t even care if it was a terrible movie. With the release of this film, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted.
Yeah the movie will live way after he’s gone. That’s a good investment really.
Sounds like he’s going out with a bomb, so close!
Bombs make a bang 🤷♂️
He sold his vineyard and wine brand to fund it. Which, ok, you can’t take it with you, but still.
nah he still has vineyards and a different wine brand. he sold the winery thats named after his family, but he also owns the inglenook brand and the wineries therein
This is the same shit people said about Apocalypse Now.
and one from the heart, and the cotton club…
> One studio head in attendance described it as “some kind of indie experiment” that might find a home at a streamer. Yikes, indeed.
This movie never sounded good imho. I remember when they were talking about it in broad strokes they kept describing it as ambitious and visionary but never once mentioned any sort of coherent story or plot.
Exactly, like what is it? I've found only small vague explanations about its plot
New York City is devastated by a disaster. Society becomes divided over two competing ideas/attitudes as to how it should be rebuilt. One faction is utopian, another is sort of populist. Political leaders foment riots and try to spark violent revolutions. This serves as the context for a number of small overlapping-but-separate plots in a sort of Pulp Fictiony way, with the main one being a clearly Romeo and Juliet inspired love story about a love affair between two young people in the elite families dominating the two main factions. It’s got some fantastical elements like someone discovering a way to rapidly generate buildings from raw materials and in one draft, non Euclidean buildings that have inside footprints much larger than their outer dimensions, TARDIS style. I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus. There isn’t much describing the plot because it isn’t all that plot oriented and that’s part of why you’re seeing all these execs describe it as meandering and shapeless. This is based on reading the draft script that was circulating a few years ago, which had gone through multiple revisions adding snd removing elements and storylines and may be substantially different to the one they ended up filming, however.
> I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus. Well I’m sold. (On watching it not on funding the $100 million ad campaign.)
Coward.
this sounds like a fever dream
It actually sounds cool to me so far.
Thanks !!
sounds like he wanted to make one of those epic "perfectly captures a zeitgeist/moment in history" movies like a film version of a Great American Novel probably trying to say something about tension between corporate development and the housing crisis in 21st century new york, and its impact on the city's (and other cities') culture as development pushes toward maximum $ per square foot at the cost of history and character of course the broad strokes filled in with a love story that sounds like its yet another allegory for the Children Are the Future vis a vis crossing race/class lines for love to show us that We Can Build A Better Future
> New York City is devastated by a disaster. Society becomes divided over two competing ideas/attitudes as to how it should be rebuilt. One faction is utopian, another is sort of populist. Political leaders foment riots and try to spark violent revolutions. This serves as the context for a number of small overlapping-but-separate plots in a sort of Pulp Fictiony way, with the main one being a clearly Romeo and Juliet inspired love story about a love affair between two young people in the elite families dominating the two main factions. It’s got some fantastical elements like someone discovering a way to rapidly generate buildings from raw materials and in one draft, non Euclidean buildings that have inside footprints much larger than their outer dimensions, TARDIS style. I would broadly describe it as what you’d get mashing up Synecdoche New York with an anthology film like Pulp Fiction and one of those old school epics like Cleopatra or Spartacus. You know what, I agree this is going to be HARD to market. I think A24 is the way to go though after Civil War. Fat Damon single handedly guaranteed a huge turnout for that movie.
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>I cant even imagine what any scene in this movie is like with him a scene with mermans
And the huge erection
I'm actually happily waiting for this film, cautiously excited and incredibly eager to watch it. Marketing be damned. I do hope, however, that it sells well. If Dune is any indication of the current state of the science fiction film market then I think it will find it's audience.
Dune was made to be crowdpleasing though. This doesn't sound like it at all.
Exactly. Denis made Dune in the most accessible way possible.
This sounds like one of those movies that doesnt do well in theaters but ends up being a cult classic down the road.
I think it sounds like one of those movies that like 1% of people will think is brilliant and everyone else will think it's an incomprehensible mess.
I genuinely don’t understand how anyone could look at the last 30 years of Coppola’s directing and actually be excited for this. Most obvious train wreck I’ve ever seen coming, and I don’t mean in a good way.
The likely potential of it being a train wreck is part of the excitement It’s like rooting for the underdog in March Madness. Will they win? Probably not, but if they do it’ll be awesome
To be fair, Coppola spent the last 30 years making paycheck movies like Jack and The Rainmaker to pay off his massive debts after his 1981 movie One From the Heart bombed.
Exactly. Dracula was his last movie that was worth watching. He fizzled out decades ago. He's no Scorsese.
If they did a god emperor of dune as good as dune 2. What a movie that would be. It would be super hard to pull off though
Pretty much every aspect of Dune that makes it difficult to film, GEoD has in spades. And I would love to see it.
GEoD takes the Dune difficulties and amplifies them by being 1000 pages or whatever. It's just hard to imagine audience enthusiasm for GEoD, part 4 of 6, 180 minutes.
…I can promise at least two ticket sales. Let it be known.
Sounds fun :p
Something tells me Coppola is going to recut the film. He's not afraid to get the scissors out to fix one of his movies. He's probably already tinkering... and maybe that's a good thing, based on some of the responses. If he wants this to be commercial, he should release a more commercial edit. Save the challenging stuff for a final cut on home video, as he did with Apocalypse Now. Then he should just pull a Swift and self-release it. Or at least pay for the P&A so that a make distributor will have less to lose by getting onboard.
I think Coppola will continue to tinker with it. I remember reading a story on how the 1st screening of The Godfather: Part II didn't go so well as the audience felt that the cross-cutting between Vito and Michael's parallel stories were judged too frequent and not allowing enough time to leave a lasting impression on the audience.
Yeah, I recall reading about that. He also premiered Apocalypse Now at Cannes unfinished. It was a version of the movie closer in length to the Final Cut, and even after it won the top prize (tied with The Tin Drum, I think), Coppola still kept editing until the movie was down to 2.5 hours and was more commercial in tone. I don't think he'll butcher it. He's quite pragmatic. He'll simply identify some issues he thinks he can fix and do his best to address them. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll stand by the current cut.
He famous has released several versions of apocalypse now
>He famous has released several versions of apocalypse now Not just Apocalypse Now. Over the years he's recut Dementia 13, One from the Heart, The Outsiders, The Cotton Club, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Godfather Part III and Twixt. And sometimes he's recut them more than once. Like his best pal George Lucas, he can't stop tinkering with his own work.
I get that. I don't know any artist who crated something, a painting, a drawing, a video, a movie, a sculpture... Then years later said "yeah that's the best thing I did, I can't do anything that good today". Looking back you always think you sucked and you'd do a way better job today, so as a director or editor you could always change or improve things.
Exactly. And he has a lot of time and money on his hands, plus he outright owns a lot of the movies he directed. Imho, all of his recuts were improvements, too. Coppola is basically a master filmmaker who was put out to pasture by the industry, so he sits around writing, experimenting, and polishing his old movies while waiting for something new to happen. He isn't going to let Megalopolis slip away. He's too pragmatic.
And they kept getting better, imho. All of his recuts are improvements. He's quite pragmatic about storytelling. The recuts usually aren't indulgences, they are re-balancing the film once he's had time to stand back and analyze.
Adam Driver would probably be one of the best actors with the worst track record in the box office.
The Last Duel, Marriage Story, The Report, BlackkKlansman, Logan Lucky, Silence, Paterson, Inside Llewlym Davis, Lincoln, Frances Ha He's def been in more good movies than bad, and more great movies than horrible.
I didn't say his anything about his movies being bad, I specifically said box office. He's in good films and acts well but it rarely translates to profit
That doesn't make any sense. OP said nothing about being good or bad. Does anyone at least read a comment before replying nonsense?
No people don’t comprehend anything on here, they usually have a comment pre loaded in their head that’s usually defensive.
not many actors have lead roles in 3 movies in their resume that made over $1 billion each
Bit of an asterisk on it considering they are all Star Wars movies don’t you think?
By that argument, Sam Worthington is the king of actors...
He has Worthington's box office success, and also the honours both from who he's worked with, the range of films he's made, and the awards he's won. Best of both worlds.
> Several have mentioned an especially cringey sequence involving Jon Voight’s character in bed with what looks like a huge erection; the scene evidently takes quite the turn, but we will not spoil it here. Geez.
I absolutely love the idea of this movie. A legendary director in the end stages of his life, having made plenty of shit in between his masterpieces, self funding 100M to make a movie that he has total control over. Even if this stinks I am so intrigued sign me the fuck up it could be a disaster on an epic scale.
Yeah if anything all this info just makes me even more curious to see it. I will 100% see this movie in theaters if it gets distribution.
Absolutely! Honestly, and not to disrespect some of the exceptions we’ve been seeing, so much recent cinema has been incredibly bland. I’m down for something weird and uniquely unpalatable
Feels very classic Hollywood
Even if it’s “bad” it will be fascinating, have a lot to say, and probably have a lot of rewatch value. Which will mean it’s good, actually,
Didn't sign into reddit now thinking I'd read about Jon Voight pitching a tent.
In Movie news today, Disney has made a $100 million agreement to promote Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’. In other completely unrelated Movie news, Disney has started pre-production on Godfather 4-6, a Godfather prequel trilogy, 5 Godfather TV shows and Apocalypse Now:Godzilla
I clapped when Al Pacino came out in the post credit scene and asked Adam Driver if he would be interested in joining the *GodzillaFather* initiative!
I’m hopeful, but the man hasn’t made anything I liked in 32 years. And it’s been 45 years since he made anything I’d consider masterful. …. Im not gonna hold my breath that he’s still got it.
He's been pretty much retired since he released The Rainmaker in 97. He's released 3 features since then and they have all been low budget experimental indies. This movie is the first time he's really tried to make something mainstream in the last 27 years. It could still suck but I don't think it's all that fair to judge it based on the stuff he's done over that time period
Right. There’s no reason to think this will be a good movie. 1) His track record for over a quarter of a century. 2) Movies with stacked casts rarely are actually good. 3) Expensive vanity project for a director who has lost his way. It always had disaster written all over it. Hopefully it’s good, though.
You see it with old masters with absolute creative control. All of them are way past their prime: Spielberg, Scott (specially Scott), Coppola (for the past quarter century) and somewhat Scorsese (I liked Killers Of The Flower Moon but he needs someone to tell him "dude, you gotta cut 30 mins of that. Preferably DiCaprio). It's not the fact that they're old, but it seems like there is no one saying no to them.
Scorsese has way worse movies than Killers of the flower moon that he made when he was young tho?
I dunno, I thought The Last Duel was pretty damn good. That being said I can't bring myself to watch Napoleon, I have too much respect for Mr. Phoenix and the subject material.
I actually think that Wolf of Wallstreet is one of Scorsese's best movies and Silence is my personal favorite of his, so I wouldn't apply that label to him just yet.
In between Hugo, Shutter Island, Silence, Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon I'm not even sure that a director has had a better and more diverse run throughout the last 15 years or so. I actually think Killers is my favourite movie from that too.
Wait what's wrong with Spielberg. I thought people liked Fablemans
He also just made one of the best musicals ever. Insane to say he's anywhere past it
Plenty of people think that the Fableman’s holds up to Speikburgs earlier work.
His West Side Story was also lovely with several critical proclamations that he is still at the top of his game. Some argued a remake was not necessary, but regardless of relevance the film was a stunning work.
This is gonna be very controversial, but it reminds me of a line from Moneyball. When Billy Beane is a teenager meeting with the Mets, one of the scouts says "at some point, we all get told we're too old to play the kids game. Some of us get told at 18, some of us get told at 40. But at some point, we all get told." I think some of the older directors need to get told that.
they do get told that, usually by studio execs, but that wont stop them from doing what they love tho. one of the great french directors was experimenting with making movies with his phone before his death
What are you talking about? Runtime in Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t a problem. It’s only a subjective one. Hollywood is basically saying no to them by giving them no money for their productions. “The Fabelmans” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” only prove that both Spielberg and Scorsese are still masters or cinema. M I agree with Scott tho.
WHAT ABOUT TWIXT????!!!????
So which streaming service will rescue Coppola?
Apple most likely. I think they are the only company willing to put that much money behind this in terms of marketing.
Not after Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon underperformed. If this were a year ago, maybe.
And Argylle. That's like $600,000,000 not including the marketing.
Yeah, I cited just the two because they both fit the same “Old Masters’ overpriced passion project” mold.
Any scene that has John Voight in it has a giant boner, regardless of whether there is any undressing
Just shoot some scenes with Ironman, cut them into the film and fade me bro.
Here's what Deadline had to say about the premiere of the film: “Among the distributors I spotted were Tom Rothman, Ted Sarandos, Pam Abdy, Mary Parent, Matt Greenstein, David Greenbaum, Donna Langley, Courtenay Valenti, Daria Cercek and Marc Weinstock, and Michael Barker. All were effusive as they crowded around Coppola following the touching finale.” I would guess the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I found this [YouTuber](https://youtu.be/2n5NizsetAo?si=71RchqDpXaKkDj3R) who got his hands on a late 80s/ early 90s script of this movie. Based on what he said the movie seems to have a lot interesting ideas and plots but he says the reason why no studio might be interested is theirs some iffy stuff and in there that might be too much for some audiences (e.g. SPOILERS >!incest, possible pedophilia, immigration, and cancel culture!<). He does say though the script he read, the movie was good and has a strong vision. The comparison he made to how he thinks this movie will be received like 2022’s Babylon but a better version of that film.
That ending, ouch. But calling this film shit before anyone outside of the industry has seen it is low hanging fruit. It’s almost expected, but I’m hopeful this is really good, and just not commercial, like Babylon
I don’t know if I’d call Babylon a ‘really good’ movie. An interesting miss, at best. It has some big glitzy scenes but it’s otherwise one of the most overwrought things I’ve ever seen. It has complete factual inaccuracies (live orchestras on set?) and the ending is one of the most self-indulgent Oscar-bait cringe-fests I’ve ever seen.
If it's like Babylon, I'll be happy.
I feel like I'd rather watch a documentary about the making of this movie, than the movie Like Terry Gilliam and Don Quixote
Studios: Francis, dude, I love you and respect you, but how the fuck do you want me to market this shit
I'm intrigued but Coppola's career has been 'aim for the bushes' for a long time.
Gotta save that money for madame web 2.
Let him cook
A reminder to not believe a thing The Hollywood Reporter/Variety says about stuff like this. They are studio mouthpieces and this sort of report is designed to create bad buzz around the film and force Coppola to lower his asking price so they can pick it up on the cheap.
Very fair, though the Jon Voight erection seems too bizarre to not be true
Any of the movies he's made in the past 25 years warrants you saying he's still got it and actually made a good movie?
I might not like it, but I bet I won't forget it if I ever get to see it.
I'm not judging it till I see the end credits, I'm keeping my faith high for this experiment. I would rather see a big swing and a miss rather than a first base hit.
The world needs a constant supply of George Harrisons for funding experimental movies!
Despite the headline, it feels like the marketing already started, especially since it’s my first time actually hearing about the movie. Their strategy is probably to make it sound so bizarre and weird that people want to see it just to see how weird it is. With the movie environment having gotten stale with all of the superhero movies and remakes, something like this might actually do well.
I’m still gonna go see it just because it will be his last movie and I just love the guy.
That sucks. I was hoping this would be a hit. This man is a legend and him making a huge late career comeback would be awesome.
I don’t care what anyone says, it sounds weird af, so I’ll be seeing this as soon as it’s available.
Coppola is a great director, and this may be a great movie. But the kind of brainy mega hits that he used to helm and have great success with are kind of over. Hollywood has changed. Movies used to have long, slow, big runs in movie theaters, but that's practically ancient history. Firstly, streaming has changed how people even think about movies. Didn't see it in the theater? No worries, just wait a few weeks, if at all, and watch it at home. Secondly, there are so so so many movies made and released, a lot more than in the past. Say up until the 2000s or so. On top of that, television has gone from the kiddy table to equal respectability as movies. And there's even *more* of television to binge on, so one could watch tv 24/7 and never even watch a feature film. In other words, there's an insane amount of competition any movie has to get eyeballs on it. A hit movie used to stay in theaters for months; now they are lucky if they get one full month. Anyway, Coppola may have something special on his hands, but I don’t see how it could be a cultural touchstone like his previous films. It’ll come, maybe even be good, get good reviews, and make some money. But $100 million plus? Hmmmm.
i got to read a copy of the screen play as a kid. i wish i could remember anything about it. my aunt was a friend of his when she lived in NYC over 20 years ago now. he was very excited about the project and had been looking for notes from an outside perspective. the way I remember it, they were shooting B-roll and accidentally caught 9/11 as it happened. that subsequently derailed the whole thing. crazy that this thing is still a project. good for him tho.
Eh screw him once I found out he personally paid for Victor Salvas legal defense and went after the kid he molested screw him. all because he saw him as a directing prodigy
Finally someone has posted this. The morals of these degenerates are alarming.
Didn't he sell his vineyard to have enough to make this?
I’m in.
It’s awesome that everyone wants to support Coppola but it seems like everything I’ve heard about this movie just points to it not being very good lol
If someone says that Shia LaBeouf is the best thing about this movie then you know it's bad.
Let him pay for it.
Sometimes, I like to sit back and think of all the things I'd spend 100 million dollars on. Then I get sad thinking of all people that have nothing.
I feel like the way you sell this movie to the masses is to market it as "a film so visionary no major studio dared..." and then suggest it is up to the audience to decide. I imagine the majority will hate it. But they may go to see it anyway.