The city of New Rome faces the duel between Cesar Catilina, a brilliant artist in favor of an Utopian future, and the greedy mayor Franklyn Cicero. Between them is Julia Cicero, with her loy... Read allThe city of New Rome faces the duel between Cesar Catilina, a brilliant artist in favor of an Utopian future, and the greedy mayor Franklyn Cicero. Between them is Julia Cicero, with her loyalty divided between her father and her beloved.The city of New Rome faces the duel between Cesar Catilina, a brilliant artist in favor of an Utopian future, and the greedy mayor Franklyn Cicero. Between them is Julia Cicero, with her loyalty divided between her father and her beloved.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Huey Wilkes
- (as Bailey Ives)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFrancis Ford Coppola wrote the script in the early 1980s, but the film was kept on the back-burner partially due to his financial debts. Pre-production finally began in 2001 after filming 30 hours of second unit footage and holding table read with Paul Newman, Uma Thurman, Robert De Niro, James Gandolfini, Nicolas Cage, Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Edie Falco, and Kevin Spacey, but the project was scrapped after the September 11 attacks, because a scene from the script (page 166) "predicted" the attacks. Coppola fully abandoned the project in 2007, and didn't begin developing it again until 2019.
- GoofsAt 40:12, the tool in Catilina's hand changes color without him moving.
- Quotes
Cesar Catilina: *You* wanna help me?
Julia Cicero: Yeah. And, well, I... well, I want to learn.
Cesar Catilina: And you think one year of... medical school entitles you to plow through the riches of my Emersonian mind?
Julia Cicero: Entitles me?
Cesar Catilina: Yes.
Julia Cicero: [scoffs] Entitles me?
Cesar Catilina: Yeees!
Julia Cicero: Entitles me?
Cesar Catilina: YEEEEEES!
Julia Cicero: You have no idea about me! You think I am nothing, just a socialite?
Cesar Catilina: No, not nothing, but I reserve my time for people who can think. About science. And literature, and... architecture and art. You find me cruel, selfish and unfeeling? I am. I work without caring what happens to either of us. So go back to the cluuuub, bare it all, and stalk the kind of people that you enjoy.
Julia Cicero: Fine! I will.
Cesar Catilina: Come back when you have more time!
- Alternate versionsThe "Ultimate IMAX Experience" version of the film features a live actor asking questions during the filmed press conference.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Amanda the Jedi Show: MEGALOPOLIS is my Nightmare | Explained (2024)
- SoundtracksMy Pledge
Written by Grace VanderWaal
Performed by Grace VanderWaal
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment
Produced and Orchestrated by Kris Kukul
It's challenging to understand what Coppola's intention was with this film. It seems like he chose not to focus too much on characters but rather on themes. However, some scenes suggest that the audience should feel empathy for the characters, but one simply can't. One reason for that is the pacing of this film; it somehow manages to be fast, yet feel slow, and that might be because some scenes are dull. If we remove all the misleading character development, we are left with misleading idea development. Megalopolis bombards you with interesting ideas, but because there are quite a few of them, none of them evolves into a solid conclusion. As I already mentioned, it's hard to see where Coppola was going with all of this.
If his intention was to go against the classical narrative structure and challenge viewers with a different type of storytelling, then that didn't work either. Some scenes contain clichés, and the overall structure feels like a mix of 50s to 90s scenery. One interesting thing the movie does frequently is plant a seed that sometimes does not grow-it stays in that scene, and then we move to the next one. This method of storytelling is misleading and confusing for most audiences, and it probably would work better if this technique had a solid foundation throughout the whole film. But it simply does not feel right.
David Lynch once said that you can make any film, any art the way you want, as long as it feels right. His films are stranger and more difficult to understand than Megalopolis, yet when you watch Lynch's work, you don't feel misled-everything feels right, no matter how strange it is. Megalopolis sometimes feels right, sometimes it doesn't.
Megalopolis is a good example of how the director's stylistic touch matters to the look of the movie. The cinematography of this film was done by the same person who shot The Master. Yet this film feels like any expensive commercial shot today-too vivid, too warm, too basic.
I will definitely rewatch this film in the future, all jokes aside. This film has a shtick to it that I didn't quite get the first time watching. Overall, it's a bit sad that this is Coppola's last film, but I'm sure he has no regrets making it. After all, this is the guy who made Apocalypse Now, and I will respect him forever for his contribution to American cinema.
- oleh_holodyshyn
- Sep 28, 2024
- Permalink
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $120,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $7,629,085
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $4,007,797
- Sep 29, 2024
- Gross worldwide
- $13,768,244
- Runtime2 hours 18 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.00 : 1