Coppola at the top of the poster for Megalopolis

"A movie for life"

Filming could start in the fall

The director plans to start filming this fall in Atlanta. The budget is estimated at 120 million dollars (113 million euros), according to the specialized press.

In a long interview with the magazine GQ , the director returned to the genesis of Megalopolis , a futuristic fresco on a utopian city ravaged by climate change.

"I've been working on my utopia for 50 years. I wanted to write a screenplay on the greatest love story of all time. I've never been able to do it. It's a huge job. I didn't want to make a movie about a man and a woman who fall in love, get married and have children - that's been done. I wanted something that would encompass a vision of society, philosophy, and cosmology.

A film that would ask questions about the fate of the world, the destiny of humanity, the value of human life, the value of a human being... It's the subject of all my films. »

Coppola had already planned to shoot Megalopolis in 2001, after Dracula . The film had to bring together Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Marlon Brando. But the September 11 attacks had forced him to abandon the project, the budget being too heavy. "It was too ambitious, it was a folly, I was young and foolish," he admits today in GQ .

Coppola says the script has constantly evolved over the past two decades. "I've been working on the script for 50 years, and it's still not finished. I've made five different versions. I don't think it will ever be finished. It's like a living thing, it changes all the time. I'm going to have to sit down at some point and say, 'Okay, that's it, I'm done.' But I don't know when that will be."

In the current version of Megalopolis , Adam Driver, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, and Dustin Hoffman are expected to star.

"I'm thrilled to be working with such an incredible cast," Coppola said. "They're all such talented actors and they bring so much passion and commitment to the project."

If Megalopolis sees the light of day, it will therefore be Coppola's first film since Twixt shot in 2011.