Budget: $120 million [source]
Opening weekend gross: $4 million
Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it’s safe to say that’s not happening.
It would have been THE worst opening for a $100 million movie ever, had it not been for Pluto Nash’s horriffic opening 22 years ago.
Even The New York Times is reporting near-empty screenings of Megalopolis!
I saw it and the theater had 6 Gen-X/Boomer white men in it, my weird self and SO (who wanted to leave), and a group of 4 millenials mocking the movie in it.
First hour was pretty engrossing and the end is wild but I get why it’s hard to review. It’s definitely a mashup of all of Francis Ford Coppola’s favorite things and complaints he has.
But it’s an optimists dream like view of reality. It’s akin to Inside by Bo Burnham, except far more hopeful and less pointed, and more like a club to bludgeon you with the message with.
I kinda wish he had an even more limited budget to work with to inspire some real avant garde creativity but I’ll take what we got.
I don’t think it needs to make it’s money back. I don’t think that’s what Coppola was going for. I’m not sure it will even be a cult classic (kinda depends what society does next) and I think that side thought is basically all of Coppola’s point. His medium to talk is just that of film.
I watched it totally alone on Saturday night, never been in a theater alone! I’ve heard there were a lot of walk outs - which I don’t get, theres no accounting for taste of course, but I didn’t think it was leave early bad.
I loved the spectacle and the aesthetic and the fashion, the characters were sorta eh - this is a story where the characters aren’t grounded in realism but are supposed to be stand ins for ideas or movements. Aubrey Plaza was great in it, I actually kinda liked Shia LaBeouf as well. Adam Driver was so-so, but I think that was down to directing. Music choices were odd but I kinda dug it.
I really had a hard time following the plot. Lots of things happened and were resolved in the next scene - felt like about an hour was cut haphazardly. I didn’t have a theatre were an actor was hired to interview Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) breaking the 4th walll butterfly aspect ratio and frame changed enough to keep some semblance of the effect.
spoiler
Cesar can control time, which is interesting but I think is basically just a literalization of him being an Artist able to freeze time (it’s said as much in the movie), not a gaudy super power
- not really a spoiler it’s like the first scene.
Kind of a bizarre trip, glad Coppola got to make his Moby Dick of a movie. It’s way funnier than I was expecting something as pretentious as I figured it’d be - reminded me of Shakespeare style blending of High Art and Low Art, a comparison I’m sure Coppola would love. I bet I’ll watch this again on streaming or Blu Ray or something years later and see a bunch of stuff that didn’t make sense the first go.
Well, I’m glad you got something out of it.
Saw warcraft in theaters opening weekend. No one was there.
The closest I’ve ever got to being alone in a theatre was a matinee showing of Don’t Breathe like 4 weeks into its run. Got 15 minutes in before someone else came by.
Lol so late? Must have saw it already.
Sounds like it’s worth a watch to me. Thanks
Is he holding one of these?
Yes.
I can’t stand Adam Driver personally
What about professionally?
Adam Driver and Shia LaBeouf should fight in a gladiator ring.
Shaka, when the walls fell
Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI
Legendary fight with Shia LaBeouf
Normal Tuesday night, for Shia La Beouf
Why?
Honestly, don’t think he has much acting chops from what I’ve seen him in. Largely unexpressive and when he is expressing something it doesn’t make me actually feel any connection to that emotion. Mostly, just another gloomy stoic white man. He’s got a weird face and decent fitness but that’s about it imo.
While it may be panned now like Shawshank Redemption was I expect this to become a favorite down the road. Calling it here now.
Maybe I’m getting whooshed here, but while Shawshank Redemption had some bad luck at the Oscars, it was nominated for seven of them, including best picture, best actor, and best adapted screenplay. People might not have predicted its staying power, but it was pretty much universally praised.
Shawshank is a hidden gem!
@remindme@mstdn.social 5 years
@TheImpressiveX Ok, I will remind you on Sunday Sep 30, 2029 at 7:14 AM PDT.
I didn’t know this would work.
Right? You’re on the mark with that imho
I’ve actually been looking forward to this, ans this is the first I’ve heard if it actually releasing.
I don’t know what’s up with film marketing these past few years, but I miss almost all of it, despite being interested.
I feel the same.
Hot take here and I havent seen it but it has all the signs of being that one late in life misunderstood film that everyone realizes later is completely genius 🤷♂️
You’re describing a cult classic, but I think this will be hard given the absolute shitheads Coppola cast for this movie.
Shia LeBeouf sexually assaulted and strangled FKA Twigs, and Jon Voight is all-in for Israel and is cheering on genocide in Gaza. They’re despicable people.
I don’t think this movie will ever glow up. At best, people will watch it ironically.
Oooof. Fuck, I had forgotten the horrors of the cast. Shitfucks. Ok well i probably won’t see it then.
Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it’s safe to say that’s not happening.
While the basic point still stands that this is a financial disaster for somebody, I would be seriously surprised if the usual blockbuster math regarding marketing comes into play here. No way Lionsgate paid $100M marketing a vanity project with “commercial flop” buzz from the beginning. If anything, it seems more like they picked it up on the cheap when everyone else passed, as a gesture to a legend (if apparently a creepy one), and a low-risk bet.
We truly seem to be living in a time of entertainment correction.
All the millions of dollars spent on monies video games and TV shows only for them to flop over and over.
What a time to be alive.
Eh this film was not made to make Blockbuster profit. It’s a dream project by one of the most accomplished directors, and probably his last one. He’s had flops before that are now considered masterpieces.
Why would anybody spend $300 million on a movie nowadays? If this isn’t Avatar or Deadpool, it’s not going to make it back.
Idk, bc he’s Francis Fordckin Coppola, it’s his money, he’s 800yo, & wanted to just do a giant crazy flight of fancy on his own terms on his way out?
And can you blame him?
I think for someone like that, it isn’t about the money, it’s about making your artistic vision happen, using the clout you built elsewhere to push through a project that was never financially viable but it’s your dream as a filmmaker.
Sometimes those stories end up becoming some of the biggest movies of all time, but often they just end up being a big waste of money except for the guy who gots to make his dream movie.
Do you have other examples of such movies in mind?
The Thief and the Cobbler is one, it was massively expensive and destroyed the studio, but it was the animator’s magnum opus he worked on for 30 years.
Showgirls was one of the movies Paul Verhoven pushed for as a personal project, and it literally destroyed the careers of some of the people who were part of the project (and gave many of us a chance to see tits on basic cable at 15, so your sacrifice will not be forgotten)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a first of its kind, a photorealistic movie, but the cost and the fact that the movie just wasn’t very good basically destroyed the studio after one picture.
Disney’s Treasure Planet was intended to be the magnum opus of its creators, but ended up being a nail in the coffin of disney animated movies.
Cameron’s Avatar is an example in the other direction, where it was this weird movie about blue aliens he really wanted to make that ended up making all of the money. His movie Titanic is another weird one, where you have a 3 and a half hour historical romance that became the top movie on earth.
Christopher Nolan’s Inception was also mind bendingly popular, and one of the films he used his clout to create.
I also heard about a movie from 1980 called Heaven’s Gate which destroyed the director, the studio, and essentially ended the era of director-led movies because studios were too gun-shy after that bomb to let that happen again.
So as you can see, these sort of risky auteur films can either be the biggest flops or the biggest home runs, it really depends on the film and the world around it in that moment.
Thanks !
It is crazy-making and it’s one of the reasons 2022 to 2024 had such enormous flops. They just don’t have any control over budgets at all, and apparently thought the era of superhero billion dollar box offices was never gonna end. I’m picking on capeshit unfairly because even the supposed auteur movies had way too big of a budget - and you don’t even see it on screen, the effects look so bad lol (unless it’s an Avatar, like you said)
Damn I gotta watch this ASAP
Ouch
