Ahead of its Italian release scheduled for October 16, cinema maestro Francis Ford Coppola has shared a few more details about “Megalopolis,” a long-gestating project that premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews from critics.
The impressive staging that pits the utopian ideals of an inspired architect against the conservatism of an authoritarian mayor in the fictional city of New Rome required considerable waiting and effort before seeing the light of day. As revealed in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Coppola obtained approval for the first draft of the screenplay back in 2001 , which was followed by a first reading behind closed doors with actors Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edie Falco and Uma Thurman. To our great surprise, we discovered that “Megalopolis” is closely linked to actor James Gandolfini, star of the HBO television series “The Sopranos”, who sadly passed away in 2013. The actor who played Tony Soprano also apparently took part in the reading of the script, and then shared his opinion with the rest of the group. In the initial plans, the actor was supposed to play the role of co-star Franklyn Cicero, the mayor of the visionary megalopolis later assigned to Giancarlo Esposito.
On these aspects, Coppola stated the following: «It was the first version, but it wasn't that similar. There were several periods in which I did tests. In fact, the lead actor of The Sopranos gave me a lot of great suggestions. He read the part of the mayor during a test in 2001».
The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers that same year also complicated the making of the film, inevitably blocking the creative process: "I was writing a film about utopia, confident in the future, and then the terrorist attack came. I couldn't write anymore, so I abandoned the project."
The reason behind Gandolfini’s hiring stems from the director’s great appreciation for “The Sopranos,” which he called “incredible.” Speaking of the credit that creator David Chase had for making the show, he added: “He wanted to be a director, and you can see all these cinematic influences in the show. And then he elevated television storytelling to the level of movies, and maybe surpassed them. It’s pretty amazing!”
After seeing himself in the 2017 episode “Southern Italy: The Heel of the Boot” of the TV show “Anthony Bourdain: Secret Kitchens,” Coppola decided to get in shape and find some dormant inspiration. After a short time, the idea of returning to work on “Megalopolis” became increasingly clear: “When I finally saw the episode, I thought: I look like a whale, this is not healthy for me. I signed up for a five-month program at Duke Fitness Center, where The Godfather writer Mario Puzo had gone a few times, and I lost 30 pounds. During the days when I was doing this rigorous exercise regimen, I started listening to readings of Megalopolis just for the fun of it, and I thought: This feels more relevant than ever. I realized that, even though the script was 20 years old, I could still do it.”
Born as a criticism of Hollywood and the world of the star system, Coppola reiterated that “Megalopolis” is not the result of an American superproduction, and therefore cannot be defined as “woke”. Also underlining that it is a non-partisan film - hence the choice to include actors of different political orientations in the cast - we will not find any type of ideological reference and will not run the risk of “moralizing”. In this sense, he specified: «What I did not want to happen is that we were considered a snobbish Hollywood production that limits itself to moralizing the viewers. In the cast there are people who have been written off at one time or another. There are people who are arch-conservative and others who are extremely progressive from a political point of view. But we were all working together on a film. It was interesting, I thought».
