Francis Coppola's $120million self-funded epic Megalopolis panned as an 'abomination' by critics following allegations of chaos on set as crew members claim legendary director smoked marijuana in his trailer and 'pulled young women onto his lap'

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He's been revered as a directorial heavyweight behind the legendary Godfather trilogy and a beacon of 70s cinema.

It also features the talents of an ensemble cast that includes the likes of Shia LeBouf, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza and Laurence Fishburne.

In addition to directing the feature, Coppola wrote its script and serves as one of the project's producers. The filmmaker reportedly spent $120 million of his own funds in order to finance the movie.

Early screenings of the upcoming film have yielded mixed reviews from critics - and some have even given it a measly ranking of one star out of five.

But the latest offering from infamous Hollywood screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola , 85, is being slammed as 'bloated', 'boring' and dubbed a 'head-wrecking abomination' by critics

The issues don't stop there - crew members working with Coppola have also come out to accuse him of 'wasting time', smoking marijuana in his trailer and 'pulling women to sit on his lap'. 

Staff even claimed moments on the disasterous set left them asking: 'Has this guy ever made a movie before?'

Speaking to The Guardian, one insider said that Coppola rattled tech-savvy production workers by insisting on old school methods which took hours.

They recounted actor Adam Driver's first day, capturing a scene where his body is fused with futuristic material. 

The director reportedly insisted on using mirrors and projectors to achieve the effect, as he did with his movie Dracula 30 years earlier, instead of letting staff do it digitally - which would have taken ten minutes.

'So they basically strapped Adam Driver into a chair for six hours, and they literally took a $100 projector and projected an image on the side of his head,' they said. 'I'm all for experimentation, but this is really what you want to do the first day with your $10m actor?'

They also found that Coppola had staff exhausted with his indecision over designs, and would keep changing his mind and idea on the movie's vision.

Another source told the outlet that the filmmaker would allegedly show up with no plan in place for how to shot a big sequence. 

Speaking to The Guardian , one insider said that Coppola rattled tech-savvy production workers by insisting on old school methods which took hours

Coppola would then 'whip up something that didn't make sense', leaving the crew 'trying to make the best of it'

'He would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn't talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana,' they claimed. 'And hours and hours would go by without anything being filmed. And the crew and the cast would all stand around and wait.'

Coppola would then 'whip up something that didn't make sense', leaving the crew 'trying to make the best of it'.

'This sounds crazy to say, but there were times when we were all standing around going: "Has this guy ever made a movie before?"' a third remarked. He was also branded as 'unpleasant'. 

Insiders also commented on Coppola's 'old school' behaviour towards women, claiming that he pulled women down to sit in his lap. 

Elsewhere, it was alleged that while shooting a 'bacchanalian nightclub scene' for the movie, he tried to 'kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras' - in an attempt to 'get them in the mood'.

Executive co-producer Darren Demetre however told the Guardian that Coppola 'successfully produced and directed an enormous independent film'.

Referring to his behaviour while shooting the celebratory club scene, Demetre said Coppola 'walked around the set to establish the spirit of the scene by giving kind hugs and kisses on the cheek to the cast and background players'.

Megalopolis - which premiered at Cannes Film Festival last night - is centered on a superpowered architect who attempts to rebuild New York City into a modernist utopia. Pictured from left to right: Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Francis Ford Coppola, his grandaughter Romy Coppola and Adam Driver

This was allegedly to 'help inspire and establish the club atmosphere'. Demetre insisted that he wasn't made aware of any complaints during filming.

Amid the making of the movie, Coppola was also dealing with the illness of his wife Eleanor Coppola, who died at the age of 87 last month.

Eleanor had been present on the set of the movie 'until her illness prevented her from being there,' a spokesperson told the outlet. 

As well as the turbulent behind-the-scenes, Coppola's movie has failed to impress critics - despite getting a ten-minute standing ovation at Cannes on Thursday.

Giving it only one star, Kevin Maher of The Times slammed it as 'all hot air and waffle held together, barely, by film-making at its most threadbare'.

Meanwhile, ranking it two stars, Peter Bradshaw, for The Guardian, said the movie came across as 'a passion project without passion: a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film, full of high-school-valedictorian verities about humanity's future'. 

However, not everyone was as quick to trash the film - The Telegraph awarded it a respectable four stars.

Robbie Collin said it was a 'full-body sensory bath movie which follows a struggle for power among the elites of New Rome'. 

Here, FEMAIL looks at the mixed bag of reviews Megalopolis has been attracting...

THE TIMES

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Kevin Maher of The Times panned the movie, dubbing it '138 stultifying minutes of ill-conceived themes' and 'half-finished scenes'.

He also trashed the actors' 'nails-along-the-blackboard performances'.

The critic then took issue with the movie's 'bizarre' exposition and said it's also 'not a great movie' for women, men or 'human beings in general'.

GUARDIAN

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Peter Bradshaw said that while the film was 'ambitious and earnestly intended' - and 'has some flashes of humour and verve' - it was ultimately 'a Coppola failure'.

Writing for The Guardian, he was also unimpressed with the cast's acting and 'inexpensive-looking VFX work'.

However, Peter added that the film 'does ask a valid question' about the sustainability of 'the US empire'.

The critic only awarded it two out of five stars. 

THE TELEGRAPH

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Ranking it at four stars, Robbie Collin of the The Telegraph was full of praise for Aubrey Plaza's 'fantastic' performance in the movie.

However, he found that it was clear that it's clear that the film had undergone several metamorphoses.

'The final result does feel like something that has been stretched, wrung and kneaded to a degree where straightening the thing back out again would be impossible, and also largely beside the point,' the reviewer wrote.

DAILY MAIL

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Awarding the film only one star, the Daily Mail's Brian Viner was full of praise for the vision - but not the execution - of Megalopolis. 

'The 85-year-old director has been rightly feted this week on the Riviera. He is an industry colossus, whose 1970s output alone – The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now – elevates him to the top tier of filmmakers,' he penned.

'But with that mighty talent comes a mighty ego, and a clear expectation that "Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: A Fable", to give it its complete and vainglorious title, will make us marvel anew at his genius.

'Let us weep at his hubris instead.

'It's not that there isn't a powerful springboard for his story: the notion that America in the near future, and New York City in particular, might be comparable with Ancient Rome as decline and decay set in. He calls his metropolis New Rome, a place undermined by greed, and men intent only on enriching themselves.'

He however found the plot 'wildly confusing' - and branded it a 'mega-flopolis'. 

THE INDEPENDENT

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Writing for the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab said that Megalopolis, despite its mixed reviews, is 'no car crash'.

'Francis Ford Coppola's self-funded $120m (£94m) epic, certainly isn't another Godfather or Apocalypse Now, but it's at least bursting with ideas,' he wrote.

But the critic - giving the movie three star - found that despite a stellar cast, most big names offer 'mannered and occasionally throwaway performances' which don't gel well with the director's storytelling.

FINANCIAL TIMES

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The Financial Times's Raphael Abraham awarded the film one star - claiming viewers have witnessed a 'spectacular fall from grace from another great of 1970s cinema'.

He remarked on Coppola's 'painful labour of love' as being riddled with 'aggressively theatrical, lines delivered with arched eyebrows and histrionic gesturing'.