Francis Ford Coppola said in an interview with Rolling Stone that, with Megalopolis, he planned to create a film that could not be regarded as “some woke Hollywood production.” Megalopolis features Shia LaBeouf, the Transformers star who faced sexual assault allegations in 2021. The cast also includes Jon Voight, an actor with supposedly conservative views who has supported Donald Trump.
“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers. The cast features people who were cancelled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought,” said Coppola.
As for his collaboration with LaBeouf, the filmmaker hailed the actor's work on the film while acknowledging that things were not easy with him.
“Shia [LaBeouf] really took to it. I had no experience working with him prior to this, but he deliberately sets up a tension between himself and the director to an extreme degree. He reminds me of Dennis Hopper, who would do something similar, and then you’d say, ‘Just go do anything,’ and then they go off and do something brilliant,” said Coppola.
The official logline of Megalopolis reads, "New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor's daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves."
The film also stars Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar, DB Sweeney, and Dustin Hoffman.
Marking Coppola's comeback as a director after 2011's Twixt and his first feature in the sci-fi genre, Megalopolis is slated for a September 27 release in theatres.