Megalopolis: Cast, plot & more for Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie

One of the most iconic directors is returning to the big screen in 2024 with a scorcher. The Megalopolis premiere isn’t a day you’ll want to miss on your calendars, and we’ve got all the details here.

Francis Ford Coppola, known for some of the best movies of all time, hasn’t directed a feature film since Distant Vision in 2016.

His new movies have been received unfavorably compared to the heights he reached in the ’70s with the likes of Apocalypse Now and The Godfather. Still, rumblings about the scale and cast of Megalopolis have created hype nonetheless.

2024 might be his big comeback year (although, we’d argue he doesn’t require one with a legacy like this), so let’s break down Megalopolis.

Is there a Megalopolis release date?

Megalopolis premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on 16 May 2024 and will hit French cinemas in September. There’s no worldwide release date yet.

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Independent company Le Pacte will distribute in France while the film secures dates in other territories. Countries with deals include the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria.

It has been a long, rocky road to Megalopolis: Coppola spent 40 years with it on the back burner and millions of his own money trying to finance the project. Now the sci-fi epic is expected to premiere in 2024 following competition at Cannes.

Megalopolis cast

Adam Driver leads the Megalopolis cast, with actors including Nathalie Emmanuel, Grace VanderWaal, Shia LaBeouf, and Zendaya rounding it out.

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Coppola has said that star power in film financing is everything, so it makes sense he’d bring in Driver. Known for Star Wars movies and indie dramas alike, Driver is a household name with a lot of credibility.

Giancarlo Esposito is the corrupt Mayor. If you’ve seen his bad-guy chops in the likes of The Mandalorian, you’ll know he’s more than capable.

Nathalie Emmanuel is the Mayor’s daughter, Julia, who doesn’t enjoy the life she has inherited. You may recognize her from the Game of Thrones cast.

Transformers actor and Peanut Butter Falcon star Shia LaBeouf was cast in Megalopolis in 2022.

Hold onto your hats, this full list of actors released by the Cannes Festival’s website is… mega.

Full Megalopolis cast list:

• Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina
• Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero
• Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero
• Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum
• Shia LaBeouf as Clodio Pulcher
• Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III
• Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz
• Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina
• Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater
• Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine
• Kathryn Hunter as Teresa Cicero
• Dustin Hoffman as Nush ‘The Fixer’ Berman
• Sonia Ammar
• Chloe Fineman
• Madeleine Gardella
• Balthazar Getty
• Bailey Ives
• Isabelle Kusman
• James Remar
• D. B. Sweeney
• Zendaya

Megalopolis plot

Megalopolis is a “Roman Epic” sci-fi movie set in a destroyed New York City, which an idealist architect who can control time wants to rebuild as a utopia.

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The architect, Cesar Caitilina (Driver), is opposed by a corrupt Mayor who aims to maintain a regressive status quo. Pulled in two directions is the Mayor’s daughter, Julia (Emmanuel), a socialite searching for life’s meaning.

Coppola conceived the idea when filming Apocalypse Now in 1977. Inspired by classic movies like Metropolis and Things to Come, he intended to make an operatic science-fiction film with New York as the main character.

The creation of a script and several attempts at getting Megalopolis off the ground took place over the next decades (Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio even did table reads), but Coppola finally landed on the final version in 2019 when he spent $120 million to revive it.

“I remember once I took 130 blank pages and put on a title page boldly announcing ‘Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis’, he told Vanity Fair. “I pretended it wasn’t totally blank, weighing it in my hands so I could imagine what one day it would feel like, and believe one day it could exist. Then later, once I had a draft, I must have rewritten it 300 times, hoping each rewrite would improve it, if only a half percent better.”

Is there a Megalopolis trailer?

Megalopolis’ first look footage was released on May 4, 2024, but there’s no full trailer.

The first look clip is over two minutes long and shows off the golden hour cinematography, epic scale, and leading man.

Megalopolis reviews

Out of Cannes, Megalopolis reviews have shown the movie is divisive. It is rotten on Rotten Tomatoes.

The score will go up and down as more are added, but at the time of writing it sits at 50% with 24 reviews.

Hoai-Tran Bui at Inverse said, “A bunch of ideas smashed together into a garish, baffling, dazzling, kind of atrocious, and totally audacious rejection of the cinematic form. It should never have been made. And yet, now that it has, we should be so grateful that it exists.”

Esther Zuckerman’s rotten review for The Daily Beast stated, “Megalopolis is stilted, earnest, over the top, CGI ridden, and utterly a mess. And yet you can picture a crowded theater shouting along with Jon Voight as he says in one key scene, “What do you make of this boner I got?”

For more grand cinema, check out Dune 3, the best animated movies, or new movies streaming. We’ve also got a list of the best TV shows ever.