cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10893967
While U.S. distributors continue to complain about its low commercial prospects, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” has been picked up by Le Pacte in France. French newspaper Le Point confirms the film has also set a late September release in France.
Le Pacte is the same distributor as last year’s “Anatomy of a Fall.” No word yet on how much they paid to nab the rights to “Megalopolis,” but I can’t imagine it being that high given that Le Pacte isn’t necesarilly a studio known to dish out an inordinate amount of money for a film.
The early word we’ve gotten thus far is that Coppola’s self-funded $120 million epic is a perplexing film. It’s been described as “batsh*t crazy.” “baffling,” “downright confounding,” “undefinable,” “fit for a museum” and the “work of a madman.”
Last month’s, THR takedown of “Megalopolis,” a nasty piece of writing, surely didn’t help anything. What the report basically stated was that “Megalopolis” studio execs believed the film to be “too experimental” and “not commercial enough” to acquire.
The early word we’ve gotten thus far is that Coppola’s self-funded $120 million epic is a perplexing film. It’s been described as “batsh*t crazy.” “baffling,” “downright confounding,” “undefinable,” “fit for a museum” and the “work of a madman.”
They had me at “batshit crazy”, everything else is icing on the cake, albeit weird cake.
If the chum bucket that is Hollywood says they won’t do it, sign me up. I’m so tired of their garbage.
Am I crazy or does anyone else think it’s strange a FFC film is “finding distribution”?! Like even if it’s an ungodly piece of shit, American studios could still probably make money off his name alone. Like did he just forget to let his agent know he made a new movie? Lmao
Just running ads with “From the academy award wining writer and director of the Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and co-author of Patton comes…”
It’s supposedly super weird. Like in a “nobody will get this shit” way. Which makes me just wanna see it more. If film nuts and critics find it insane, it’s gotta be good.
Oh for sure I’ll watch it out of respect if nothing else haha.
Maybe it’s condemnation of capitalism, like Idiocracy. We know the studios don’t like that.
Film lovers will never forget.
General audiences is an entirely different scenario.For so many people, those Coppola films are more distant to them than “Gone With The Wind” was to me growing up. And you never saw anybody my age talking about having seen “Gone With The Wind” and saying “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” to each other.
It’s going to be bad. Very bad lol
Oh wow with regard to myself this is a better advertisement than they could ever have done! I now definitely want to see the film
This could mean either it is really a piece of sh*t, or they just didn’t recognize a future cult classic. I’ll definitely will have a look once it is easily available, and decide the question for me.
It could also be that they are risk-adverse, hence all the franchises, sequels and remakes.
I did wonder if he was asking a lot for the rights to cover his investment but the article says this:
No word yet on how much they paid to nab the rights to “Megalopolis,” but I can’t imagine it being that high given that Le Pacte isn’t necesarilly a studio known to dish out an inordinate amount of money for a film.
The American distribution rights will be more but it might not be as high as I suspected and he may be asking for a higher cut of the take. Which they also might not like - after all, this is an industry that used creative accounting to fuck over the writer of Forrest Gump so badly he refused to option the sequel.
However, at this point you have to wonder if a director’s self-funded project that he wrote and directed himself without any oversight might be pretentious and dull. All that said, you couldn’t pay for all thr publicity this has got and I can’t see them not breaking even.
I’m intrigued. Hopefully this will trigger a US release.
I’d just love to see something non-formulaic this year. With the writer’s strikes, and state of the film industry, I’ll take anything at this point.
(Don’t interpret this as criticism of the writer’s guild. The people who make the art should absolutely be able to support themselves while executive split blockbuster profits)
Having never seen the original film is that also ‘bat shit insane’ or has FFC just decided to do his own thing with the material?
You’re confusing the title with Metropolis by Fritz Lang I assume. That was my first thought as well.
Yeah, you’re dead right, lol. My mistake!
This is an original film.
