Francis Ford Coppola’s next film, “Megalopolis,” is not out until late September, but chatter began long before.
The film stars a large ensemble cast, including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne and more. Coppola called the movie a “Roman epic set in modern America” in an interview with Vanity Fair. He financed the $120 million budget himself, the director confirmed to GQ.
Multiple controversies about the production and marketing of “Megalopolis,” as well as Coppola’s conduct, have made headlines in recent months. Read on to learn more about the lawsuits, pulled trailers and more.
Coppola sued Variety for libel following allegations of inappropriate behavior on set
Coppola filed a $15 million lawsuit against Variety on Sept. 11.
He is accusing the entertainment news magazine of making “false and defamatory statements” about his behavior on the set of his latest movie, according to a court document shared by The Hollywood Reporter from the Superior Court of the State of California.
The lawsuit centers around an online article published by Variety on July 26.
The article included short videos that Variety said it obtained from an unnamed crewmember on the “Megalopolis” set that they say show Coppola “trying to kiss young female extras.” The fuller context of the interactions is not immediately apparent from the video published by Variety.
Coppola has denied that his actions on the set of “Megalopolis” were inappropriate. He said he “provided evidence to Variety” that the “allegations were false” and requested the allegations be retracted. “Variety refused and doubled down,” the lawsuit read. The intentions of the lawsuit are to “clear his name.
Coppola’s lawsuit comes two days after he was sued by a female extra, Lauren Pagone, who says she worked on “Megalopolis.” On Sept. 9, Pagone filed a lawsuit against Coppola and the film’s production and casting companies and accused the director of civil battery and civil assault, according to a court document shared by Deadline.
Coppola’s lawsuit said there are people who wish to defame him due to jealousy.
“Some people are creative. Very few people are creative geniuses. In the world of motion pictures, Plaintiff Francis Ford Coppola (“Coppola”) is a creative genius,” reads the opening of the summary of the case, in part.
“Some people are jealous and resentful of genius,” the lawsuit continues. “Those people therefore denigrate and tell knowing and reckless falsehoods about those of whom they are jealous.”
The lawsuit goes on to say that Variety and its “writers and editors” falsely accused Coppola of “manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production, ‘Megalopolis,’ of setting up some type of scheme so that anyone on the set who had a complaint of harassment or otherwise had nowhere to lodge a complaint, and of hugging topless actresses on the set.”
“Each of these accusations was false and knowingly so,” the lawsuit continues, in part. “They were made to harm Coppola’s reputation and cause him severe emotional distress. That harm has been caused.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the unnamed extra who filmed videos of Coppola appearing to kiss women on set “obviously could not be trusted and wished to harm Coppola.”
The Variety article from July did not mark the first time Coppola faced questions about his actions on the set of “Megalopolis.”
Reports about his on-set behavior emerged in a May article in The Guardian. The Guardian cited multiple anonymous sources who alleged the director “pulled women to sit on his lap” and “tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras.”
Asked about these allegations in August by Rolling Stone, Coppola called The Guardian articles “totally untrue.”
“If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were — and I honestly don’t know who the sources were — it’s the same people who provided quotes for that ‘Hollywood Reporter’ piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that.
“And the truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt,” he continued. “The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.”
The film’s executive co-producer, Darren Demetre, responded to allegations that Coppola had behaved inappropriately on set, telling The Hollywood Reporter in May that he “was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behavior during the course of the project.”
“There were two days when we shot a celebratory Studio 54-esque club scene where Francis walked around the set to establish the spirit of the scene by giving kind hugs and kisses on the cheek to the cast and background players,” Demetre said. “It was his way to help inspire and establish the club atmosphere, which was so important to the film.”
A ‘Megalopolis’ extra sued Coppola for civil battery and civil assault
On Sept. 9, Lauren Pagone, who worked as an extra on “Megalopolis” and identified herself as one of the actors seen in Variety’s videos, sued Coppola for civil battery and civil assault, according to a complaint filed in the Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia.
Pagone’s lawsuit also includes claims against the American Zoetrope production company, which was co-founded by Coppola, as well as multiple casting companies linked to “Megalopolis.”
The complaint alleges that while filming a scene on Feb. 14, 2023, Coppola on multiple occasions “pressed his lips against Plaintiff’s cheek while leaving saliva on her face, groped her butt, pushed his lips against her face, rubbed and massaged Plaintiff’s body in an up-and-down motion, and gripped Plaintiff’s arm to hold her very close to him, all while making sexual advances and comments toward Plaintiff.”
Pagone’s lawsuit also accuses Coppola, American Zoetrope and multiple casting companies of “negligent failure to prevent sexual harassment.
In addition, complaint alleges that “Defendants failed to have an Intimacy Coordinator on site despite filming scenes with nudity and/or sexual content.”
Intimacy coordinators Samantha McDonald told Variety that she and the movie’s other intimacy coordinator, Ash Anderson, were not on set to film the nightclub scene, where the alleged harassment occurred.
TODAY.com has reached out to McDonald and Anderson. Anderson replied in a statement confirming she and McDonald were not present at that specific scene. She also said she and McDonald were only brought on for “specific scenes” and “not given access to, or information on, the other scenes that may have benefited from intimacy coordination support.”
“My personal belief is that productions should strive to integrate their intimacy coordinator into the full production process, rather than on a scene by scene basis. This approach benefits the whole of production: above line individuals, crew, and actors themselves to not just help prevent, stop, and/or flag abuses of power on set, but also to elevate trust and provide all round support in a hyper vulnerable process,” Anderson’s statement read.
Anderson pointed to SAG-AFTRA’s guidelines on the use of intimacy coordinators, which reads: “Producers must use their best efforts to engage an Intimacy Coordinator for intimate scenes.”
‘Megalopolis’ trailer pulled over fake quotes
In August, the movie studio Lionsgate said it “screwed up” after fabricating critics’ quotes in a recent trailer for “Megalopolis.”
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a studio spokesperson said in a statement to TODAY.com. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and (production company) American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”
One “Megalopolis” trailer, which was pulled by Lionsgate but is still circulating via third-party accounts on YouTube, features a slew of quotes from critics slamming some of Coppola’s most beloved past films, including “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
The problem? These quotes from critics do not appear to exist.
Speculation over the quotes’ veracity began circulating online soon after the trailer’s release, after film critic Bilge Ebiri revealed in a piece for Vulture that the quotes, which were attributed to renowned critics including the late Roger Ebert, appeared to be completely fabricated.
“What’s the intention here?” Ebiri wrote. “Did the people who wrote and cut this trailer just assume that nobody would pay attention to the truthfulness of these quotes, since we live in a made-up digital world where showing any curiosity about anything from the past is seen as a character flaw? Did they do it to see which outlets would just accept these quotes at face value?”
The now-pulled trailer for “Megalopolis” opens with the words spoken in voiceover, “True genius is often misunderstood.”
The trailer then moves through three of Coppola’s most notable films — 1972’s “The Godfather,” 1979’s “Apocalypse Now” and 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” — and features snippets of supposed quotes from critics bashing each film.
“A sloppy self-indulgent movie,” reads one quote attributed to the late critic Andrew Sarris from “The Village Voice.”
The trailer also suggests that Sarris said the film “doesn’t know what it wants to be.”
However, neither of these quotes are found in Sarris’ actual 1972 review of “The Godfather.”
A quote from the late film critic Pauline Kael claiming “The Godfather” is “diminished by its artiness” also seems to be fabricated, as it does not appear at all in her 1972 review of the movie in The New Yorker.
Multiple quotes cited by the trailer about “Apocalypse Now” seem to be made up, too. The late critic Vincent Canby never called the film “hollow at the core” in his 1979 review in The New York Times and, as Vulture reported, the critic Rex Reed did not call the movie “an epic piece of trash.”
Likewise, Ebert did not call “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” a “triumph of style over substance” in his 1992 review of the film.
A similar phrase did appear in his review of 1989’s “Batman”; Ebert called that film “a triumph of design over story, style over substance.”
Critic Owen Gleiberman also confirmed that he never actually called “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a beautiful mess.”
“Even if you’re one of those people who don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths. Then again, the trivial scandal of all this is that the whole ‘Megalopolis’ trailer is built on a false narrative,” Gleiberman told Variety this week.
“Critics loved ‘The Godfather.’ And though ‘Apocalypse Now’ was divisive, it received a lot of crucial critical support,” he continued. “As far as me calling ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ ‘a beautiful mess,’ I only wish I’d said that! Regarding that film, it now sounds kind.”
Coppola addressed the controversy over the fabricated quotes in a recent red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“Well, I know that there were bad — I’m the one who said there were bad reviews,” he said. “But I don’t know. It was a mistake, an accident. I’m not sure what happened.”
Coppola addresses the exit of the movie’s visual effects team
In August, Coppola addressed reports that the entire art and visual effects departments had left “Megalopolis” partway through the movie’s production.
He said that ultimately, he and production designer Beth Mickle “didn’t share the same vision.” TODAY.com has reached out to Mickle for comment and has not heard back.
“We (later) disagreed to a degree that it was decided that the best thing would be if I hired a concept artist and came up with frames t
“The art department was frustrated because they felt I was evolving the look of the picture independently of them. They wanted giant sets and images,” he continued. “I wanted other elements like costumes and live effects to do some of the work and have it not all be art-department-centric. So, there was disagreement along those lines.
He also appeared to confirm reports that much of the art department had walked out.
“The art department had a production designer, five art directors and a supervisor. It was very hierarchical. I said, ‘Let’s fire one of the five art directors,’ and they said, ‘Well, if you do that, we’ll all resign.’ And I did and they did. Then, of course, they bad-mouth us: ‘Oh, this picture is crazy.’”
As both director and financier, Coppola said he felt he should have the final say on how the film was made.
“I said, ‘Let’s face it, I’m the only one who knows what the director has in mind. I don’t care what you think,’” he told Empire. “Also, I’m not only the director —I was also putting up the money. So, to be told that I had to have a huge art department that I didn’t want was absurd to me.”
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