The highly-anticipated new film might debut in late September.
Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating epic Megalopolis has prompted quite a lot of chatter lately, between its recent premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and the surprise release of its first trailer. The film, which was self-financed by Coppola himself, has been on the hunt for distributors for several weeks now, and has (at the time of this writing) yet to find a domestic distributor. Nonetheless, the U.S. debut of Megalopolis just got a major update, as it was announced on Thursday that the film will get a global run on IMAX screens.
According to reporting, Coppola personally secured an IMAX run for Megalopolis in “at least twenty U.S. cities in late September”, potentially hinting at when the film could make its debut. An official release date still has yet to be set.
What Is Megalopolis About?
Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.
“Somewhere down the line, way after I’m gone, all I want is for them to discuss [Megalopolis] and, is the society we’re living in the only one available to us?” Coppola said in a 2022 interview. “How can we make it better? Education, mental health? What the movie really is proposing is that utopia is not a place. It’s how can we make everything better? Every year, come up with two, three or four ideas that make it better.”
“I would be smiling in my grave if I thought something like that happened, because people talk about what movies really mean if you give them something,” Coppola continued. “If you encouraged people to discuss marriage and education and health and justice and opportunities and freedom and all these wonderful things that human beings have conceived of. And ask the question, how can we make it even better? That would be great. Because I bet you they would make it better if they had that conversation.”
Who Is in the Cast of Megalopolis?
The ensemble cast for Megalopolis includes Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, 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, Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina, Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater, Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, Kathryn Hunter as Teresa Cicero, and Dustin Hoffman as Nush “The Fixer” Berman.
“It’s kind of undefinable, which feels very general until you watch the movie,” Driver revealed in an interview earlier this year. “Then my answer will be perfect. There’s not a lot of precedent for it and it’s wild on a big scale, which is what’s really unique about it.”
