Francis Ford Coppola’s highly anticipated Megalopolis has an equally stunning and confusing teaser trailer. Megalopolis is Coppola’s first feature film since 2011’s Twixt, which was one of the most poorly reviewed movies of his directorial career, earning a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 30%. Coppola, the legendary director of Apocalypse Now (1979), The Godfather (1972), and The Godfather: Part II (1972), has been celebrated for decades as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and plans to make a big impression with his long-awaited “fable” Megalopolis. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2024.
Adam Driver plays Cesar, an idealist architect and inventor who dreams of building a utopia in Megalopolis. The earliest impressions of Megalopolis have been mixed, dividing critics who attended the premiere at Cannes. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter writes in his review, “I can’t say I was always engaged over its two hours-plus run time, but I was always curious about where it was going next. Is it a good movie? Not by a long stretch. But it’s not one that can be easily dismissed, either.” Peter Debruge of Variety noted, “Megalopolis is positively awe-inspiring in some places and an absolute eyesore in others.”
The Megalopolis cast also includes Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero, Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero, Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher, Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III, Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz, Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, and Dustin Hoffman as Nush “The Fixer” Berman. Driver’s Cesar, as named by Coppola, also has the ability to manipulate time, adding a layer of supernatural realism to the film. The story logic of Cesar’s time manipulation remains undefined in the trailer alone but will likely be a major theme throughout Megalopolis as Cesar tries to bring his vision to life.
One positive note from the Megalopolis teaser trailer is that the film looks fantastic, full of mesmerizing cinematography and lighting that creates a scenery unlike anything ever put on film before. There is no doubt that much of Megalopolis was created using advanced visual effects, which according to early reviews works both for and against the film’s favor. The visual style helps achieve a cerebral, futuristic sci-fi quality to Megalopolis that alone makes it intriguing. Coppola’s films have always been revered for their distinctive use of shadows and color on film, and judging by the trailer, Megalopolis appears to be one of Coppoila’s most aesthetically engaging movies.
Shia LaBeouf appears in several different forms in the Megalopolis trailer, at one point dressing as some type of Roman goddess. LaBeouf’s character raises many questions off the bat, but his name, Clodio Pulcher, provides some contextual clues. Clodio Pulcher seems to be an embodiment of the populist Roman politician and street agitator, Publius Clodius Pulcher. The real-life Pulcher clashed with Cicero, the famous elected Roman official, which also happens to be the last name of Esposito’s mayor character. Megalopolis is poised to be LaBeouf’s biggest role since 2019’s Honey Boy and The Peanut Butter Falcon.
The moving statues in the Megalopolis trailer add to the surrealistic sci-fi elements of the film. It is unclear from the trailer alone whether they are real or whether they are simply fragments of Cesar’s broad imagination. Cesar looks at them through the backseat of a car and they lean on the surrounding architecture, looking withered and exhausted. Cesar says over the images, “Don’t let the now destroy the forever.” Since there are many allusions to Ancient Rome in Megalopolis, the falling statues could be representations of the fallen empire and could be insinuating that the New Rome in the movie, which is much like the real-life New York City, is also on the brink of collapse.
Megalopolis is being primarily branded as a sci-fi epic but has elements of other genres such as fantasy, political thriller, action, and romantic drama. What’s most clear about the overall tone of Megalopolis based on the trailer alone is that it will likely feel all-encompassing and will perhaps result in a production that ultimately feels over-the-top. Coppola began to officially develop Megalopolis in 1983 after conceiving the idea during the production of Apocolypse Now and even held table reads for the project back in 2001. This indicates that he has had a very long amount of time, perhaps too much time, to develop the plot, which could end up making the plot feel stuffy and convoluted.
One of the most interesting hooks of the film – Cesar’s ability to manipulate time – is not even demonstrated in the Megalopolis teaser trailer. It is, however, portrayed in the first look of the film, which is a clip of the opening scene. Some of the early reviews for Megalopolis reveal that Cesar is not only an architect but also an inventor, so it’s quite possible that he invented a highly advanced machine that he can use to manipulate time which will become a key part of his vision for utopia. Other films that feature this time-manipulation dynamic, such as Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow, are often driven by this central theme. It’s unclear just how big of a role Cesar’s time manipulation will play in Megalopolis.
In addition to the aforementioned Cicero and Pulcher characters, Cesar Catalina is a reference to Julius Caesar as well as the Catilinarian conspiracy of Ancient Rome. If the city’s name “New Rome” didn’t give it away, then the horse-drawn chariot races seen in the trailer also contribute to the heavy Ancient Roman themes and influences. Another key Roman surname is Crassus, which can be seen on display on the outside of a theater in the Megalopolis trailer. “Crassus National Bank” appears to have a major influence over New Rome, and two Megalopolis characters played by Jon Voight and Talia Shire share the name. The real-life Crassus formed the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar.
New Rome is in part destroyed by a terrible accident, which at one point in Coppola’s screenplay was confirmed to be a satellite falling out of the sky. Based on the trailer, the cataclysmic event that destroys New Rome appears to be some type of meteor shower or artillery strike that makes a direct impact on the city, but it also could end up being the satellite that was revealed to be in Coppola’s screenplay decades ago. There is a brief glimpse of a satellite around the 1-minute mark in the teaser trailer, which could be the biggest hint that Coppola kept the satellite piece in his original vision of the script. Whatever caused the cataclysmic event in Megalopolis will likely have major implications for the society and conventions of New Rome.
Megalopolis looks to cover a lot of ground in its 2-hour and 13-minute runtime, which by today’s standards is not a very long movie at all. Aside from all of the Roman influence and time manipulation elements, the biggest curiosity about Megalopolis is its story. It’s clear that Cesar is a visionary who wants to make a utopia out of New Rome, but the key question is how. The film sets the stage to deliver a grand message about society at large, encouraging audiences to question the status quo and to use their imaginations to revamp and potentially revolutionize the concept of society itself. Megalopolis sounds like it’s built on an intellectually stimulating premise, but how the film will execute these colossal, sweeping themes remains to be its biggest mystery.
As a self-proclaimed fable, Megalopolis has an intention and a clear message that it should arrive at before the end credits. Based on the trailer alone, that message feels like it will be some type of cautionary tale about the collapse of a once-great society, and perhaps will extend to include themes of unavoidable global disasters and an ideological clashing of the oppressed vs. the oppressors.
What’s evident is that there will be a conceptual battle of what is best for New Rome, which strikes a resemblance to the battle for the “soul of Gotham” in The Dark Knight. Cesar and Pulcher may aim to overthrow Mayor Cicero to achieve a vision of utopia, but then the question begs, what does their utopia look like, and is utopia even achievable? The lesson of the fable Megalopolis could exist there.
The teaser trailer reveals that Megalopolis will be screened globally in IMAX theaters which is a bold claim considering that the film has yet to find an official distributor. It’s certainly a power move that only someone with the legacy and checkbook of Coppola could pull off and will hopefully come to fruition, even though the industry at large seems hesitant to embrace Megalopolis following its premiere. The true marketing factor for the film, apart from Driver and its ensemble cast, is Coppola himself, considering it will be one of the final films of his extraordinary career. Like the idealistic vision of the film’s protagonist and the film itself, Megalopolis could draw audiences based on its significance in a historical sense, even if the film isn’t an instant Coppola classic.