Almost a yr after Megalopolis bombed in theaters, the monetary shockwaves are nonetheless hitting Francis Ford Coppola. In line with new filings, the Oscar-winning director has as soon as once more used San Francisco’s famed Sentinel Constructing — the copper-domed flatiron tower in North Seashore — as collateral for a non-public mortgage. The paperwork present Coppola’s firm, Francis Ford Coppola Presents, secured a mortgage from Capital Holdings VI LLC, with the century-old constructing backing it. The precise mortgage quantity wasn’t disclosed, however the transfer indicators simply how a lot pressure Coppola faces after self-financing the 2024 sci-fi epic.
Coppola initially purchased the seven-story landmark for $500,000 in 1973, only one yr after The Godfather catapulted him to world fame. The pre-1906 Earthquake construction has lengthy been tied to his fortunes: he practically misplaced it throughout a debtor’s public sale within the Nineteen Eighties and put it up as collateral once more in 1998. It homes Café Zoetrope and as soon as served as headquarters for American Zoetrope. The roots of this example hint again to Coppola’s decades-in-the-making ardour venture. To fund Megalopolis, he merged two wineries and borrowed $200 million in opposition to his possession stake — leaving him deeply leveraged even earlier than the film debuted.
The movie — a $120 million sci-fi fable that reimagines New York as “New Rome” and stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, and Adam Driver — earned simply $14.4 million on the field workplace. Coppola used leftover mortgage funds not solely to complete the movie but in addition to renovate the Sentinel Constructing and improve his Inglenook Vineyard, even changing former American Zoetrope places of work into boutique resort rooms. However when the movie flopped, the implications had been fast. Earlier this yr, Coppola informed Rick Rubin:
“I don’t have any cash as a result of I invested all the cash that I borrowed to make Megalopolis. It’s principally gone. I believe it’ll come again over 15 or 20 years, however I don’t have it now.”
Was ‘Megalopolis’ That Dangerous?
Collider’s Chase Hutchinson gave the movie 4/10, claiming it was “massive, bonkers” and “a multitude,” which… about sums it up. He wrote:
“It is a movie that goes for breadth over depth, seemingly attempting to be about all the pieces solely to finish up being about nothing. Maybe we’re meant to see Caesar as a stand-in for Coppola himself. Whereas that is essentially the most honest of interpretations, it’s additionally essentially the most uninteresting and egotistical. Then possibly it’s that Caesar is a self-critical takedown of “nice males” who, regardless of all their supposed good intentions, are outlined by conceitedness and avarice. The movie is like a Rorschach take a look at the place all the pieces is a stretch and nothing has any substance to it.”
Megalopolis shouldn’t be at present obtainable to stream or to buy on PVOD. Which is odd, since you’d assume it would save a constructing.
- Launch Date
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September 27, 2024
- Runtime
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138 Minutes
- Director
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Francis Ford Coppola
- Writers
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Francis Ford Coppola
