It took him over 40 years to bring his original vision to the big screen.
Soon, legendary director Francis Ford Coppola will showcase his dream project, Megalopolis, to the first viewers at the Cannes Film Festival. But before that, the creator gives us a trailer preview of what he has been working on for nearly half a century. The Oscar-winning creator and author of the film classic The Godfather returns after a decade-long hiatus with an epic sci-fi that symbolically closes his rich directing career.
The story of Megalopolis is a kind of fable of the Roman Empire set in an alternate version of contemporary New York, which has been devastated by a cataclysmic natural disaster.
A young, ambitious architect, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), wants to rebuild the city using his unusual ability to manipulate time. However, he faces opposition from the greedy city mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). Based on the first preview, with its impressive visual style, the film promises to be full of artistic metaphors and parallels to the contemporary world, including Coppola himself. Many film experts believe that the character of the great visionary who decided to revive a declining society with his provocative ideas mirrors the 84-year-old legendary creator.
Whether Coppola’s current directorial magnum opus, Megalopolis, will achieve a similar cult status as his previous masterpieces will be revealed in the coming days, as the first reactions from the premiere on the Côte d’Azur are made public.
