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  • Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Plays to Near-Empty Theaters

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/b...ox-office.html

    Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Plays to Near-Empty Theaters

    Francis Ford Coppola spent roughly $140 million on the film, which debuted to an estimated $4 million in weekend ticket sales.



    Francis Ford Coppola at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where “Megalopolis” premiered to a 10-minute standing ovation.Credit...Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA, via Shutterstock
    Brooks Barnes
    By Brooks Barnes

    Reporting from Los Angeles

    Sept. 29, 2024Updated 12:52 p.m. ET There is no kind way to put it: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” died on arrival over the weekend.

    Mr. Coppola, 85, spent decades on the avant-garde fable, ultimately selling part of his wine business to raise the necessary funds — about $120 million in production costs and another $20 million or so in marketing and distribution expenses. But moviegoers rejected the film: Ticket sales from Thursday night through Sunday will total roughly $4 million in North America, according to analysts, slightly below worst-case scenario prerelease projections.

    “Megalopolis” played in nearly 2,000 theaters in the United States and Canada. As of Saturday evening, it was on pace to place sixth in the weekend box office derby, behind even “Devara Part 1,” a poorly reviewed, three-hour, Telugu-language action drama that was available in around 1,000 theaters.

    “Megalopolis” is about a brilliant architect (played by Adam Driver) who wants a society to lift itself out of the gutter. Ticket buyers gave the film a D-plus grade in CinemaScore exit polls. It is rare for a big-budget movie from a major director to get less than a B-minus.

    Adam Fogelson, the top movie executive at Lionsgate, which distributed “Megalopolis,” described Mr. Coppola as “a cherished member of our creative family,” and said the company was “proud to partner” with him to give the film “the wide theatrical release it deserves.”

    “Like all true art, it will be viewed and judged by movie audiences over time,” Mr. Fogelson added.

    A spokeswoman for Mr. Coppola declined to comment.

    In the 1980s, when Mr. Coppola first began to develop the film, “Megalopolis” may well have had a chance in theaters. It was a time in Hollywood when ambitious films for thinking people could be eased into a few theaters and allowed to build an audience over months, adding more screens week by week and sometimes playing for a year or more. Hollywood could afford to take it slow in part because moviegoing dominated leisure time: Not only was there no internet yet, cable TV and video games were still in their relative infancy.

    Today, movies are typically booked into as many theaters as possible as quickly as possible, especially if reviews are weak. Studios use this distribution tactic to capitalize on expensive marketing campaigns, which are intended to open a narrow window of interest from consumers. If the masses do not immediately materialize, theater chains redirect screens toward other movies. (On Friday, the Warner Bros. sequel “Joker: Folie à Deux” will arrive in more than 4,000 theaters.)

    “Megalopolis” almost didn’t make it into theaters. In the spring, when Mr. Coppola began shopping for a distributor, every big studio turned him down. Some executives from these studios admired the movie for its artistic risks. But none saw much hope for it in theaters. (Eventually, Lionsgate agreed to distribute the film for a fee.) More and more, original films are sent directly to streaming services — if they get made at all. Theaters are increasingly for remakes and sequels.

    “Like it or not, movie theaters are not where this audience gets this kind of entertainment any more,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said in an email.

    Mr. Coppola is the second Hollywood legend in three months to learn this lesson the hard way. Over the summer, Kevin Costner’s costly “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” flatlined at the box office. Plans to release the second chapter in theaters were canceled.

    In Hollywood, where backbiting and schadenfreude run rampant, some agents and publicists have privately referred to “Megalopolis” as “Megaflopolis” for months. The film seemed to be snakebit from the start, suffering from offscreen problems that included crew firings in the middle of production, a libel suit and a bungled promotional trailer.

    But most of the film industry winced at the dismal weekend turnout. Many people in leadership positions in Hollywood were inspired to pursue cinema as a career because of Mr. Coppola’s masterpieces from the 1970s, including “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.” To see one of their heroes from that era crash and burn is a painful reminder of how much the movie business has atrophied.

    For the weekend, the No. 1 movie in North America was “The Wild Robot” (Universal/DreamWorks Animation), which was on pace to collect a sturdy $35 million over its first three days in theaters. “The Wild Robot” cost $78 million to make. It received euphoric reviews.

    “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Warner Bros.) was second, taking in about $16 million, for a four-week domestic total of roughly $250 million. “Transformers One” (Paramount) was third, collecting an estimated $9 million, for a two-week domestic total of about $40 million.

    Brooks Barnes covers all things Hollywood. He joined The New York Times in 2007 and previously worked at The Wall Street Journal. More about Brooks Barnes

  • #2
    There has been zero marketing and zero buzz around this release around here. It won't be opening in the Netherlands until December, that's why I picked it up in Germany. I've seen it last Friday, the prime evening show. The theater dedicated the biggest room in the building to it: 596 seats, only 8 ended up being occupied.

    Movies aren't allowed to grow legs anymore, so this looks like a monumental failure for now. I even doubt it will see a main-stream release anymore in the Netherlands, but maybe it will fare better in the arthouse circuit.

    Even after a few days of processing what I've seen, I'm still not sure how to judge this movie... I guess I've to see it at least once again, but I'm not feeling motivated to do so, I guess that might be an indication.

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    • #3
      [QUOTE]“Megalopolis” played in nearly 2,000 theaters in the United States and Canada. As of Saturday evening, it was on pace to place sixth in the weekend box office derby, behind even “Devara Part 1,” a poorly reviewed, three-hour, Telugu-language action drama that was available in around 1,000 theaters.
      ​[QUOTE]
      Interestingly, Megalopolis is not playing in Montgomery, AL, but Devra, Pt 1 is the Film-Tech Forums film this weekend, beating out The Wild Robot.
      Neither doing killer business, because Football.

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      • #4
        This banner headline on a local news website on Saturday summed it up pretty well:
        "Impossible to describe': San Francisco Audiences React To 'Megalopolis' With Bewilderment"
        Since opening night, attendance at my venue has been noticeably unremarkable for the opening
        weekend of a big movie from a major, Oscar winning director.

        > On Saturday, a noontime showing of VERTIGO in 70mm sold more tickets than any of the subsequent
        MEGALOPOLIS shows on that day.

        > Looking at online ticket sales for my venue, tonight's prime-time screening of VERTIGO is almost
        sold out, and has sold more than double the amount of tickets than ALL of today's MEGALOPOLIS shows
        combined! . . and it looks like the same thing will happen tomorrow too. One of our programmers told me
        we probably should have scheduled another 70mm show or two but it's too late now due to 'commitments'.

        In the interest of full disclosure, VERTIGO always does very well here in San Francisco, since a large part
        of the movie was filmed on location here, and, also, there is a certain percentage of people here in SF who
        would buy tickets to watch an hour of countdown leaders, as long as it was in 70mm. (and I love them all!)



        Last edited by Jim Cassedy; 09-30-2024, 10:53 AM.

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        • #5
          I don't think the movie is bad. I think it's just too late.

          There was a time when a line like, "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli," would fly. Today, no. Coppola is a great movie maker and I can't imagine that he would make a bad movie, especially when he's got his own money riding on it. On the other hand, it's easy to think that he's out of touch with what movie goers want to see.

          There was a day when, "Do you feel lucky?" was cool. Today, lines like "I will find you... I will kill you." are the catchphrases of day.

          My GF's dad told me stories along the same lines. On one of his last movies he described a certain line, spoken by one of the characters, that he didn't like. He thought it was gross and distasteful. He wanted the line cut from the script. Others went behind his back, filmed the line and put it in the movie while he wasn't watching. He was pissed off but everybody else thought it was funny and cool. Personally, I can see where the joke lies but I agree with Bob. The line was sophomoric, at best. You know what Hitchcock said, "If a line doesn't further the plot, cut it out!"

          I'm not saying Coppola is too old. I just think he's used to making movies the "old way" but people, today, don't watch those kinds of stories, anymore.

          Bottom line: Coppola wants to make movies with a story. People, today, just want to see explosions and gunfire.

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          • #6
            I would go for the cannoli every given day... I'm still in the process of making up my mind. I think I've meanwhile arrived at the point where the movie feels more like a let-down to me than something groundbreaking I simply are unable to see from my current perspective.

            Not that long ago I rewatched all the Godfather movies and I think those movies always targeted grown-ups, back when they were released just like today. I can't believe that the youth of yesteryear would've appreciated those movies more than the current generation.

            But those movies were just that: Damn good movies. They do have a plot without 100 loose ends, every line in those movie progresses the plot. Those movies also do have metaphorical messages, but they're not in-your-face.

            I can't help the feeling that Coppola simply became too detached from reality. He probably made the same mistake as Lucas: he surrounded himself with yes-men instead of people that dared to challenge him and dared him to get the best out of everything. I guess that's also part of the process of getting older... You're not willing to go there that much anymore.

            It's often the studio that gets the blame why a movie fails, because the director was held back by them while blowing their cash out of the window. And while that often may be the case, there might also be cases where the movie was saved because the studio actually intervened. I still believe that this is how we got, among other things, the first Star Wars movie. If Lucas could've done whatever he wanted back then, it would've looked more like a sequel to THX 1138 than the cultural significant smash hit it ended up to be.

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            • #7
              It’s weird how that article went through all that analysis but then skipped over the most obvious possibility: maybe the movie is just a piece of crap.

              I saw it. It is.

              Horizon Part 1 flopped because it wasn’t good. I didn’t see it but have talked to several who did. They all said the same, it just wasn’t good.

              The Wild Robot is proof that a non sequel non superhero movie can do well. There are lots of other examples.

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              • #8
                Taste is pretty relative, we are talking about art after all (sometimes with a capitol A sometimes not), especially when folks are trying to do "serious cinema". I don't know if I would like Megalopolis yet. But most decent art-house releases would be received about the same in the US general population, and so attendance numbers really mean nothing relative to my film preferences... in fact films that are "popular" tend to mean I should avoid it (with a few breakthrough exceptions).

                All that said it may still be a steaming pile of....

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                • #9
                  Here in Lawton at our AMC 13-plex they have Megalopolis playing just one showtime on the IMAX screen. The Wild Robot has the other showtimes. This evening there was a preview "fan first" screening in the IMAX house of Joker: Folie à Deux, which knocked Megalopolis out of the 7:00pm slot.

                  I'm grimly curious about seeing the movie, but not sure I want to blow $15 or more on a ticket. I could only watch it Tuesday evening. Plus I'm already going to miss my Wednesday and Thursday evening workouts at the gym due to other plans. I wonder if the theater can cancel a screening if they sell only a couple or so tickets for a showtime. It would be pretty funny if I went to see the Tuesday evening show and was the only person in that big room.

                  To me Megalopolis sounded like an ill-advised vanity project the first time I heard rumblings about it years ago. I'm still not sure I understand what the movie is about. It kind of sounds like a weird re-telling of Romeo and Juliet. And we already got a bizarre modern-day version of it from Baz Luhrmann in the 1990's (great music soundtrack though). The material doesn't sound like something that would have any chance of surviving a traditional pitch session to a major studio executive. And that might explain why Coppola had to finance much of the production with his own money.

                  Francis Coppola will always be one of the greatest film directors ever. He earned that with the first two Godfather movies, The Conversation and the great yet flawed Apocalypse Now. He was in his 30's when he made those movies. His work was new and exciting to movie-goers then. In all types of the entertainment business it is very difficult to stay "relevant" when reaching middle age and older. We tend to turn into our parents and become lame.​

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                  • #10
                    I just read a plot summary online. It sounds too didactic.

                    It's like Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" but with a different MacGuffin. Instead of a robot, there's this stuff called 'Megalon.' It's got the struggle between good an evil. It's got the hero underdog (not really that much of an underdog... figure of speech) It's got the overlord ruler of the city. Dystopian Future. Mega City. Sci-Fi. The whole Megillah.

                    But didactic in the way that Metropolis is... "The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart​."

                    Stir in some romance and sex and stuff.

                    Actually, it sounds like a good movie. From the trailer I've seen, it might be worth seeing if I can get out to the theater.

                    The problem is that it's going to go right over the heads of 90% of the people out there.

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                    • #11
                      It's not really Metropolis, and it's not really Romeo and Juliet, although there is a lot of Shakespeare in it including the whole of Hamlet's Soliloquy. Mostly it seems an attempt to tie modern day America in with ancient Rome, making the argument that America is in danger of falling for some of the same reasons Rome did: corruption, amorality, and greed. The lead characters all have the names of Romans that tried to pull off a coup back in 63 BC.

                      According to Aubrey Plaza (whose character is named "Wow"), a lot of the film was made up while they were shooting it, and it shows. There are plot points that go nowhere and mean nothing, and there are some really ham-fisted scene transitions. Still, I've seen it twice now, once in IMAX and once widescreen, because it's just the most interesting thing in theaters to come along in a while. I imagine that it will find its audience years from now, everything from The Wizard of Oz to The Big Lebowski was dismissed when it first appeared, only to find acceptance and cult following years later. Even the notorious bomb Heaven's Gate has had some critical re-evaluation lately, it's even in the Criterion Collection.​
                      Last edited by Mark Ogden; 10-01-2024, 09:30 AM.

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                      • #12
                        This topic just reminded of a scene in the 1990's film Trainspotting where two of the characters are discussing original James Bond and pride of Scotland, Sean Connery:

                        Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.

                        Renton: What do you mean?

                        Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...

                        Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.

                        Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.

                        Renton: So who else?

                        Sick Boy: Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...

                        Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?

                        Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.

                        Renton: What about The Untouchables?

                        Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.

                        Renton: Despite the Academy Award?

                        Sick Boy: That means fuck all. Its a sympathy vote.

                        Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?

                        Sick Boy: Yeah.

                        Renton: That's your theory?

                        Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.​

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Mark Ogden View Post
                          IAccording to Aubrey Plaza (whose character is named "Wow"), a lot of the film was made up while they were shooting it, and it shows.
                          It sounds like he lost control of the production. My GF's dad talked about the same kinds of things.

                          In the movie "Real Genius" the character, Susan, asks, "Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?" Dad wanted that line cut out but the others did an end run and filmed it, anyway. He was pissed off! He told me a couple of other stories along the same lines. The director wanted to build a real house to be blown up with popcorn even though Dad said they should build a dummy house. Again, they whined and weaseled until they got their way. Eventually he got fed up with the crap that people play in movie productions and retired.

                          From what you say about people ad-libbing on set and shooting a movie "run and gun" style, it sounds like Coppola was in the same boat. The things I read about their being a lot of drama, accusations and fighting during production seem to confirm that for me.

                          I'm not saying that Coppola should retire but, maybe, more like Dad did. He didn't retire, per se. He basically said that he reserved the right to tell people to go fly a kite unless there was a project that he really wanted to do. Dad did one more movie after that.

                          Maybe "Megalopolis" was that "one, last movie" for Coppola. It sounds like this was a pet project for him. He'd been incubating it for decades. Right?

                          Maybe, instead of directing the movie, he should have stepped back to be the producer, hired a director and put him on a short leash.

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                          • #14
                            What role did Dad have on that one. Real Genius was one of my childhood favorites!

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                            • #15
                              Here in Lawton at our AMC 13-plex they have Megalopolis playing just one showtime on the IMAX screen. The Wild Robot has the other showtimes.​
                              Bobby, is that on the same screen? I thought doing that was a huge no-no.

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