MEGADOC Trailer: Mike Figgis Captures Francis Ford Coppola at the Helm of “Megalopolis”

One of the most perplexing, divisive, yet bold and original films of the last year was Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. The legendary director, who had tried getting the film made for 30 years, funded the $125 million to make it himself. Now, the making of the epic has been captured and made into a documentary by Oscar-nominated director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas). The aptly titled Megadoc recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where critics and audiences praised it for its fly-on-the-wall approach in capturing Coppola’s creative process and the movie’s overall production. Aside from behind-the-scenes footage (which includes tender moments with Coppola and his late wife Eleanor), the film also features one-on-one interviews with the likes of Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne, and Dustin Hoffman, as well as Coppola’s longtime friend and colleague George Lucas.

Named one of HtN’s Best Films of 2024, Melanie Addington wrote about Megalopolis, “Of all the edgy and fun independent films released [in 2024], one takes the cake for being the ballsiest release – Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Love or hate it, you likely saw the spectacle at least once on the big screen, and if you didn’t, you sure missed something special. A once-in-a-lifetime release.  Coppola self-funded the $120 million project, taking out a line of credit on his winery. As a Roman epic set in modern-day America, its work as fiction reminds us of a hard truth ahead: that empires have fallen before when taken over by the wealthy and ludicrous and that we are heading to the same fate, ignoring utopic visions of what the American dream once was.”

Utopia, run by Coppola’s nephew Robert Schwartzman, has now released the trailer for the documentary ahead of its September 19 release in select theaters.

As the official synopsis for Megadoc reads:

A raw, fly-on-the-wall documentary about Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long journey in creating his self-financed passion project, Megalopolis. The bold and unrelenting epic returns in Mike Figgis’ portrait of Coppola’s creative process – weaving together archival material, unfiltered cast interviews, and a close-up view of how the legendary filmmaker drew from Roman history, political allegory, and his own singular vision to shape the world of Megalopolis. This isn’t a record of a production on the brink, it’s a personal memoir unfolding in real time.

Watch the official trailer below.

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