Lionsgate Will Distribute Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis

Movies

A Hollywood legend is finally getting his passion project released. Francis Ford Coppola, the director of, to name a few, The Godfather and its sequels, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, has been trying to get a sci-fi epic called Megalopolis made since 1983, and he finally started putting the film together in 2019, financing it with his own money when no studios would step up. Now, he’s got the film, with a cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, and many others. Megalopolis debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and got a very mixed reaction, with doubt cast on whether any studio would pick it up for distribution. Fortunately, Lionsgate swooped in to save the day, having just signed on to distribute the film, which will arrive in theaters on September 27, 2024. You can see the trailer below:

Megalopolis finally finding a distributor is a bigger deal than the usual Hollywood handshakes. This is a film that Hollywood and the entertainment media (which loves doing the studios’ bidding) have had it in for since Francis Ford Coppola footed the bill for it himself. He went around the studios to get it made, and Hollywood doesn’t like that; they like people who color in the lines, even when it’s someone of Coppola’s stature. John Nolte wrote a couple of great pieces over the past few months documenting the various attempts to sabotage Megalopolis and even Coppola himself, including ridiculous me-too allegations (which always seem to pop up when someone pisses off the powers that be). Lionsgate picking up the film is important to keeping the art form for artists, allowing someone who’s more than made his bones in the movie business to do one for himself while the other studios try to crush him.

To be honest, I’m not surprised it was ultimately Lionsgate that scooped up Megalopolis. They’ve made a name for themselves by releasing movies nobody else will touch. John Wick was turned down left and right before Lionsgate took a chance on it, and they bumped Saw to a theatrical release when it was planned to go directly to video. They’re far from risk-averse, and they seem to value off-kilter creative visions. While it’s a crime someone like Francis Ford Coppola has to worry about whether his next film will even see the light of day, I’m glad there’s a Lionsgate around to assure it will. That’s also why I kind of want Megalopolis to be a huge success even if it isn’t good; I don’t like seeing a campaign like this happen, and I want to see Coppola and Lionsgate profit from taking a risk while the studios who tried to kill the movie miss out on a hit.