Every once in a while, I'll hear about some filmmaker trying to make some epic movie and I'll assume it'll never happen. Megalopolis has been that for me for years. I'm kind of surprised Coppola actually made it.
Greg wrote
Although, before it was released, a lot of people predicted Titanic would be a flop...
While it is a stretch to compare Megalopolis to Titanic, it may be more apt to compare it to Apocalypse Now. That is another Coppola film from a while back that had also been described as "baffling" and "batshit crazy," or words to that effect.
If Megalopolis does Apocalypse Now business at the box office, it will be profitable. I read that Dune 2 will need to make $475 million at the box office to be profitable with its $190 million budget, two-and-a-half times its budget. That means Megalopolis would need to make $300 million at the box office to make a profit with its $120 million budget. That makes sense if the theaters take their usual 40% cut to pay for their operations leaving $180 million for the producer and distributor, with prints and advertising being half of the production cost. Apocalypse Now made $80 million in domestic ticket sales in 1979, which, adjusted for inflation, is $340 million.
I want to start by saying "What do I know?" Maybe all of this is in the cards. But my first thought is seriously, what reasons are there to believe that this film is capable of making anything close to that amount? The only thing I can think of is this: maybe Adam Driver is a box office draw waiting to explode (although Ferrari suggests otherwise) and maybe Francis Ford Coppola has one more round of genius left in the chamber (although the reactions suggest otherwise). Saying "All it needs to do is make Apocalypse Now-levels of money" is the same logic used to bankroll any Francis Ford Coppola getting any budget for the twenty years that followed. Usually that logic was followed by the word "Oops" both because his moviegoing audiences weren't as adventurous as they were back in the 1970s (to say nothing about how astonishingly infantalized they are today) but also because his movies haven't met artistic or commercial expectations. He's not just not a commercially viable filmmaker. He's basically a retired filmmaker. And what is he doing? Doing the riskiest thing you can do: a $100m sci-fi film (which needs $100 for distribution!) based on no pre-existing IP. Look at last year's The Creator which bombed hard.
Look, I'm here for it. I hope this thing is everything we want it to be. It's possible that the race to get distributors before Cannes is simply due to the fact that banking the financial future of your film on the reaction of the French is always a gamble and it's not due to the fact that the film is un-commercial and possibly disappointing. Put aside the challenge of getting an ideal distributor. I'm not optimistic.