Megalopolis‘s New Trailer Prepares You for a Critical Backlash

Lionsgate has released a caller trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis front-loaded with scathing reviews for The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Have a look:

As Laurence Fishburne narrates, “one filmmaker has ever been up of his time,” suggesting audiences should ignore Megalopolis‘s divisive reviews and beryllium connected the close broadside of history, for once. It’s a clever selling run that mirrors the “guess you guys aren’t acceptable for this, but your kids are gonna emotion it,” taxable of the movie, itself.

So what the hellhole is Megalopolis adjacent about, you ask? Essentially, it’s a picaresque mash-up of The Fountainhead, Metropolis, and Caligula, successful which a fallen Soviet outer levels an alternate mentation of New York City inspired by past Rome. Referencing the players of the Catilinarian conspiracy, a sci-fi designer named Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) attempts to rebuild the metropolis arsenic a utopia of his ain design, but Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) stands successful his way. Reflecting the autumn of the Roman Empire with the autumn of the United States, Mayor Cicero benefits from things being precisely the mode they are and damn the remainder of us. So what’s a visionary to do?

A long-gestating passionateness task of Francis Ford Coppola’s, Megalopolis is said to person been initially conceived successful 1977 and was acceptable to spell earlier cameras successful 2001, earlier the events of 9/11 temporarily soured him connected the project. In 2019, Coppola sold disconnected a information of his winery to personally rise its $120 cardinal budget. It’s the movie the 85-year aged manager has ever wanted to make.

Since nary 1 astatine io9 has seen Megalopolis yet, we cannot remark connected the film’s prime ourselves, but archetypal reviews person been polarizing. Some person hailed it arsenic Copolla’s masterpiece whereas others person described it arsenic “a bloated messiness of philosophizing and incomplete crippled lines.” Interesting, right?

Currently slated for a September 27 merchandise successful some theaters successful IMAX, Megalopolis stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, D. B. Sweeney, Dustin Hoffman, and Aubrey Plaza—who plays a fiscal advisor named Wow Platinum. Incredible stuff.

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