Megalopolis, the film by Francis Ford Coppola which remained in the drawer for 40 years, will debut in competition on May 17th in Cannes after a "febrile competition" between the organizers of the French festival with those of Venice and Toronto. The website Deadline learned this, anticipating the news which was later confirmed by other US entertainment media. The indiscretion comes on the eve of the official presentation tomorrow in Paris of the festival calendar scheduled for May in which another 'grand old man' of American cinema, George Lucas, will be honored with the Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement.
Megalopolis, shown for the first time at the end of March to buyers at the Universal CityWalk Imax Theater in Los Angeles, is expected in Imax theaters in the autumn although the distributor is still uncertain.
Filming, troubled as often with Coppola films by on-set tensions, layoffs, delays and production cost dramas, wrapped up last year. "It's a project that he's been looking at for some time and that he created independently, as a true artist," the director of Cannes, Thierry Fremaux, told Variety last week, alluding to the approximately 120 million dollars that, at the end of his career, the 85-year-old Godfather director paid out of his own pocket. "Coppola built the legend of the Cannes festival and it would be an honor to welcome him again", added Fremaux, recalling that in 1995, the year of his first mandate, it was precisely on the Croisette that Apocalypse Now Redux debuted, the restored version of the epic film about Vietnam with which the director won one of his two Palmes d'Or in 1979. A Julius Caesar meets Blade Runner, Megalopolis has an exceptional cast with Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Shia LaBeouf, Coppola's sister, Talia Shire with her son Jason Schwartzman, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter , Dustin Hoffman, DB Sweeney, Baily Ives, Grace VanderWaal and James Remar. Coppola wrote the screenplay, in which an architect wants to rebuild a utopian New York City after a devastating disaster, in the 1980s, taking inspiration from the epics of ancient Rome. "The fate of Rome haunts a modern world incapable of solving its social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love", reads the official description of the plot which is still strictly under lock and key, but which seems to be set in a version of New York nicknamed New Rome. "How often do I think about ancient Rome?", the five-time Oscar-winning director wrote on Instagram in September: "Very often, because "the Roman republic served as an example for my country, America, and for its institutions and was the inspiration for my next Megalopolis".