First look at Francis Ford Coppola's 'Megalopolis'

While Francis Ford Coppola's latest film, Megalopolis, is preparing to be released in Cannes, he showed the first photo from the film via Vanity Fair. He also spoke to Vanity Fair about his film. “The seeds for Megalopolis were planted when as a kid I saw H.G. Wells's Things to Come,” Coppola says.

Here are the explanations about the production process of the movie.

“Early on, I remember once I took 130 blank pages and put on a title page boldly announcing Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, and under that, All Roads Lead to Rome. I pretended it wasn't totally blank, weighing it in my hands so I could imagine what one day it would feel like, and believe one day it could exist.

“I wasn't really working on this screenplay for 40 years as I often see written, but rather I was collecting notes and clippings for a scrapbook of things I found interesting for some future screenplay, or examples of political cartoons or different historical subjects. Ultimately, after a lot of time, I settled on the idea of a Roman epic. And then later, a Roman epic set in modern America, so I really only began writing this script, on and off, in the last years dozen or so. Also, as I have made many films of many different subjects and in many different styles, I hoped for a project later in life when I might better understand what my personal style was.”

The synopsis of the movie: “The destruction of a New York City-like metropolis after an accident brings clashing visions of the future. On one side is an ambitious architectural idealist Cesar (Adam Driver). On the other is his sworn enemy, city Mayor Frank Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). The debate becomes whether to embrace the future and build a utopia with renewable materials, or take a business-as-usual reconstruction strategy, replete with corruption and power brokering. “In between their struggle is the mayor's socialite daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), a restless young woman who grew up around power and is looking for meaning in her life.”

To maintain total control of the project, he sold part of his winery estate in Northern California to self-finance the $120 million budget. This makes us feel positively excited about the project because it will be great to watch a pure director's work (especially if it is Cappola) without the involvement of the producers. Coppola's expectation for the movie is "It's my dream that Megalopolis will become a New Year's Eve perennial favorite, with audiences discussing afterwards not their new diets or resolutions not to smoke, but rather this simple question: 'Is the society in which we live the only one available to us?'