He's gonna need a bigger vineyard...

Francis Ford Coppola’s latest movie, the sci-fi-tinged Megalopolis, has descended into chaos, according to multiple sources. The movie, currently halfway through shooting in Atlanta, has in the last week lost key creative talent including its production designer and supervising art director. That’s on top of losing the entire visual effects team in the first part of December.

To many insiders, the production is giving severe Apocalypse Now vibes, and it’s one on which the iconoclastic 83-year-old director is breaking a cardinal Hollywood rule: Never spend your own money.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235284875/

A Francis Ford Coppola movie having budgetary woes. To quote Dennis Franz in Die Hard 2, "I am stunned! I gotta lie down...!"

At this stage of the game, I'm betting some of the grandkids must be worried about where the college tuition money is going to come from!

On a serious note, he doesn't work with special FX, so this seems like a really bad bet to be making this type of picture when he needs VFX to make it work, and probably wasn't anticipating the challenges involved.

Either way...hope it's a good year for his wine (which is actually pretty good!)

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:36 pm At this stage of the game, I'm betting some of the grandkids must be worried about where the college tuition money is going to come from!

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:36 pm On a serious note, he doesn't work with special FX, so this seems like a really bad bet to be making this type of picture when he needs VFX to make it work, and probably wasn't anticipating the challenges involved.

It surprises me that someone who is so tight with George Lucas didn't have a better understanding of what effects work entails.

Maybe Coppola's more-resourceful (and cost-conscious) daughter should take over the production!

I was thinking that too, even that George might have helped him at another time. But Lucas doesn't even own his own company anymore and it's not like Disney is going to give him a coupon code.

Did Coppola learn NOTHING about the taxing nature of F/X while making Bram Stoker's Dracula?

Francis sounds a bit like Old Joe at this point.

I don't conclusively know. Can I trust Variety's perspective or objectivity on this? A person's point of view may be verry well different, compared the next person.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment ... etoo-hoax/

I don't know either, I mean, this generation wouldn't understand the nature of a hearty Italian just being expressive I'm sure of that. Grabbing extras and kissing them repeatedly is a different kind of out of bounds...wouldn't others have seen it?

Odd that it's still going though if it is some kind of smear campaign.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:37 pm Odd that it's still going though if it is some kind of smear campaign.

Which is what Nolte was pointing out. The notion of an independently financed production in the modern era of corporate entertainment control may not necessarily be a threat to the profits of corporate Hollywood. However, if this movie succeeds on some level then it could start a trend that the current corporate patriarchs do not want to see. It's an uphill battle for Coppola. I want him to succeed, but even if that happens, what next? We'll still see these massively budegeted corporate product being curated and shaped by focus groups, corporate politics, and virtue signaling. It is not going to get better continuing down this course.

The pandemic damage was done by design for more than one reason. Mentally, I don't have the energy to elaborate at the moment, but I know you can decode what I mean.

Edmund Kattak wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:00 pm
Which is what Nolte was pointing out. The notion of an independently financed production in the modern era of corporate entertainment control may not necessarily be a threat to the profits of corporate Hollywood. However, if this movie succeeds on some level then it could start a trend that the current corporate patriarchs do not want to see.

This is the same reason why critics were especially gleeful and cutting while dissecting the failure of Kevin Costner's Horizon, and it sucks. I know the film wasn't great...but it was good, and it seems churlish to pile onto a movie that was a passion project that was funded in large part out of Costner's own pockets. I notice no one's throwing tomatoes at things like Deadpool & Wolverine, because that's "saving the summer".

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:37 pm I don't know either, I mean, this generation wouldn't understand the nature of a hearty Italian just being expressive I'm sure of that. Grabbing extras and kissing them repeatedly is a different kind of out of bounds...wouldn't others have seen it?

Odd that it's still going though if it is some kind of smear campaign.

I was on a set once and the director made note of a female production assistant's incredibly toned legs, and asked if he could touch them.

She let him. She didn't care.

Neither did the director's male lover (who was on set).

That's showbiz!

My face, for most of this:



The biggest auteurist boondoggle since Babylon.

On the plus side, Aubrey Plaza...





That and the score is nice. Otherwise, an absolute, self-indulgent mess. Hope it's worth selling the vineyard for, Francis...!