Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza joined Megalopolis writer-director Francis Ford Coppola on the red carpet at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival Thursday to celebrate the world premiere of The Godfather filmmaker’s latest movie opus.
Coppola self-financed the $120 million production, which is screening in competition at Cannes. According to Deadline, Megalopolis has secured overseas distribution yet is still seeking a U.S. distributor.
Tuesday was an eventful day for Megalopolis, as Coppola’s release of the official trailer of the film competed for headlines after The Guardian published a report quoting unnamed sources about the filmmaker’s behavior on set. Plaza in turn defended the venerable director amid the report.
The brouhaha over The Guardian article didn’t stop the stars of Megalopolis from attending the Cannes, premiere, however. Here’s a look at who attended the red carpet event.
The Cannes Premiere Featured Most Of The ‘Megalopolis’ Ensemble
Nearly every star in Megalopolis was at the Cannes Film Festival’s world premiere of the movie to support Francis Ford Coppola.
In addition to Driver and Plaza, other stars from the film at the event included Grace VanderWaal, Laurence Fishburne, D.B. Sweeney, Talia Shire, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Kathryn Hunter and Shia LaBeouf.
The Cannes Film Festival’s logline for the film reads, “Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.
“Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”
Many of Coppola’s family members were at the Cannes red carpet premiere of Megalopolis, including his sister and Godfather trilogy star Talia Shire, as well as Shire’s son and Coppola’s nephew, actor Jason Schwartzman.
Giancarlo Esposito stars as Mayor Franklyn Cicero in Megalopolis, while Nathalie Emmanuel plays his daughter, Julia Cicero.
Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina in Megalopolis, an architect who has the power to control time. Aubrey Plaza, meanwhile plays a journalist named Wow Platinum.
While the logline for Megalopolis has been released, major details about certain characters in the film have not yet been revealed apart from character names.
Among them is Fundi Romaine, played by Laurence Fishburne, while Jon Voight plays Hamilton Crassus III and Talia Shire plays Constance Crassus Catilina. Dustin Hoffman—who did not attend the premiere—plays Nush "The Fixer" Berman and Shia LaBeouf portrays Clodio Pulcher.
Also among the other stars who attended the Megalopolis world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival were Cannes jury president Greta Gerwig and jury member Omar Sy.
Until Megalopolis secures a domestic distributor, it is still awaiting a U.S. release date. The film isn’t the only Hollywood production premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. The first chapter of Kevin Costner’s Western epic Horizon: An American Saga will stage its world premiere at the festival on Sunday.