The strangest blockbuster of our century is inspired by a science fiction classic by HG Wells
The first image of ‘Megalopolis’, by Francis Ford Coppola, has appeared in Variety, where they have released new information about the project from the legendary director. The metropolis of the title is seen in the background while Adam Driver’s architect and his lover, played by Nathalie Emmanuelappear above it in a sunset that reveals the large scale of the project.
A passion through the decades
Coppola has self-financed the project by selling a large part of his warehouse and spending $120 million to build it. It will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, although it does not have distribution in the US, even though Amazon and Apple could acquire it. The cast is immense: Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Jason Schwartzman, Grace VanderWaal, James Remar and Talia Shire.
Coppola describes the character of Driver as someone who has the “power to stop time”while Emmanuel’s character is caught between two people, deeply in love with the artist but loyal to his harsh father, forcing him to discover what he truly believes humanity deserves. According to the author:
“The seeds of Megalopolis were planted when as a child I saw ‘The Afterlife’ by HG Wells”, this Korda classic from the 1930s is about building the world of tomorrow, and has always been with me, first as the ‘scientist kid’ ‘ that I was and then as a filmmaker”.
The author remembers how He started his project almost four decades ago:
“At first, I remember that I once took 130 blank pages and put a cover that announced in bold Megalopolis, by Francis Ford Coppola, and below, ‘All roads lead to Rome’. I pretended that it was not totally blank, I weighed it in my hands so I could imagine how I would feel one day, and believe that it could ever exist. Then, once I had a draft, I must have rewritten it 300 times, hoping that each rewrite would improve it, even if it was only half. percent”.
In his statements, Coppola includes a long list of names that influenced the creation of ‘Megalopolis, among which he names GB Shaw, Voltaire, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, Dickens, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Fournier, Morris, Carlyle, Ruskin, Butler and Wells, “all in one”; with Euripides, Thomas More, Moliere, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Beaumarchais, Swift, Kubrick, Murnau, Goethe, Plato, Aeschylus, Spinoza, Durrell, Ibsen, Abel Gance, Fellini, Visconti, Bergman, Bergson, Hesse, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Cao Xueqin, Mizoguchi, Tolstoy, McCullough, Moses and the prophets.
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