More names have joined the swelling ranks of Francis Ford Coppola’s dream project as it moves closer to production.
As the years have rolled by, Francis Ford Coppola’s planned movie Megalopolis had begun to look increasingly like one of those passion projects that would never get made. Take a director who hasn’t worked – at least in terms of directing a new film – for a decade, a wildly ambitious project and a budget that would make most studio executives flinch, especially coming from a filmmaker whose tastes have never been commercially inclined, and you had all the makings of a film that will never see production.
Fast forward to the present and the project now boasts the kind of cast that is making it a must-watch movie, which hopefully will be the case given that the legendary filmmaker is bankrolling the lion’s share of the financing out of his own pocket.
Aubrey Plaza recently joined an exciting ensemble that features Adam Driver, Game Of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Voight. Now though, a host of other names have joined the fray, including Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Shia LaBeouf, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter and James Remar.
Shire is Coppola’s sister and Schwartzman his nephew, so as with several of his other films, the project is now something of a family affair. The announcement of LaBeouf’s casting comes hot on the heels of the actor defending himself against troubling claims from Booksmart director, Olivia Wilde as she publicises her upcoming film, Don’t Worry Darling, from which LaBeouf was reportedly fired.
Megalopolis boasts a mightily impressive cast and it looks like there’ll be some dramatic material for them to get their teeth into too. The film is based on on the fall of a civilisation, with the film’s logline stating: ‘The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicted love.’”
The self-financing gambit is certainly a bold move from Coppola, who has self-funded projects before. The filmmaker part-funded The Rain People, Apocalypse Now and One From The Heart, and entirely financed Youth Without Youth and Twixt. Of course, the stakes this time are significantly higher, but you have to admire the man’s commitment to his art. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
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