Coppola’s new film ‘Megalopolis’ shown in 1st look clip

“All I can say is I love the actors in it," said Coppola. "It’s unusual, and it’s never boring. Other than that, wait and see. It’s only going to be a few months and it’ll be out."

Looks like FFC might have some difficulty finding a distributor. From The Hollywood Reporter:

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.”

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.”

Since Coppola was always keen for this to be an Imax release, there was a small screening at the company’s Playa Vista headquarters in Los Angeles prior to the buyer’s event (the first time the director saw the film in full on an Imax screen). While Megalopolis isn’t a “Filmed for Imax” movie — meaning it isn’t guaranteed a full Imax release — Coppola did use camera technology that would allow him to shoot certain sequences that would fill an entire Imax screen, and worked with the company’s chief quality experts David and Patricia Keighley, who advise filmmakers.

Imax is likely to give the film some support if it gets distribution, sources close to the project say. Like others, however, Imax expected the film to be far more commercial, sources add.

Following the muted response to the March 28 screening, it’s now not even clear if a studio would agree to a negative pickup deal, in which the studio would buy the film outright, or one in which it would distribute the film for a fee. One studio head in attendance described it as “some kind of indie experiment” that might find a home at a streamer.

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.

Not everyone was turned off. “I liked it enormously,” says one specialty label founder, who describes Megalopolis as a “very big film” that “has a real life. … How do you define commercial? You look at movie like Blade Runner and it became so much more commercial than on opening weekend.” Despite the vote of confidence, Megalopolis won’t find a home at his studio: “It takes time to find right match,” he says.

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.”