Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Money doesn’t matter’ at premiere of $120m Megalopolis
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Francis Ford Coppola has said “money doesn’t matter” after risking $120 million of his personal fortune to fund a film critics have branded as “weird”.
The director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now travelled to the 77th Cannes Film Festival in France for a premiere of his new work, Megalopolis, an eccentric passion project that has been 40 years in the making.
The science fiction feature is about a futuristic US city with Roman themes, including a main character called Cesar, and stars Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuael.
It has been met with bemusement by some critics amid terrible reviews, which have ranged from two to four stars, and it is understood that the film does not yet have a deal for distribution in the US.
The film received a standing ovation at Cannes on Thursday, after the premiere, which Coppola said was a “beautiful feeling”.
Coppola sold off the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in 2021 to Delicato Family Wines in order to raise funds for his latest project, but is unconcerned about the risk to his personal finances, should the film flop.
Responding to questions about the potential impact on his personal fortune created by making such a “risky” film, Coppola said that he had “never cared about money” – and told the assembled press in Cannes that “money doesn’t matter”.
The director, 85, also stated that his star-studded family, including his daughter Sofia Coppola, the Oscar-winning director, and son, Roman, another filmmaker, do not need to depend on their father’s fortune.
He said: “My children, without exception… they have wonderful careers without a fortune, they don’t need a fortune.”
Coppola also explained that while some may worry about his finances being staked on his latest film, his savvy investment in the winery in California made it possible without too much personal risk.
He said: “One of the reasons I had the line of credit that I did to be able to do this movie is that in 2008, you’ll remember the financial crisis in 2008, I borrowed in those days $20 million to take a winery and build a winery.
“This absurd risk of $20 million created a plaything that every winery tries to duplicate, where people go and spend all day.
“I just took the money from that and wouldn’t have had it if I hadn’t taken the risk and I put the risk on the movie.”
He also said that he did not make the movie in New York as he claimed the state subsidy requires you to “do certain things through New York studios and institutions, which are way overpriced”.
In the 1970s, the director also self-funded Apocalypse Now, which is considered a modern classic. The set of this film was notoriously chaotic, with crew drinking sessions, tropical storms, and an insurgency disrupting filming.
Megalopolis transposes a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman Republic to a futuristic US, where an architect, played by Driver, attempts to build his perfect city.
He also said that the US is modelled on the Roman republic and that inspired the film’s setting in a place called New Rome. Coppola added that he “had no idea that the politics of today” would make the Roman setting so “relevant”.
“What’s happening in America, in our republic, in our democracy is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago,” Coppola said, warning of a potential repeat of the fall of the Roman Republic.
“Our politics have taken us to the point where we might lose (our) republic and so it’s not people who have become politicians, who are going to be the answer, I feel it’s the artists of America because the role of the artist is to illuminate contemporary life, to shine a light on it, to be the headlights,” he said.
He added: “There’s a trend happening towards the more neo-right, even fascist tradition, which is frightening.”
