Coppola’s last hurrah or final flop? Inside ‘Godfather’ director’s troubled ‘Megalopolis’

Francis Ford Coppola reportedly spent $120 million of his own money to make “Megalopolis,” which began as a script he started 40 years ago. None of Hollywood’s studio bosses liked it then — and now it’s unclear when or if it will end up in American theaters.

After the sci-fi film — about the fight for a utopian society and starring Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza — premiered at Cannes International Film Festival on May 16, Vanity Fair called it a “dreary boondoggle“ and The Guardian described it as “megabloated.” 

It is not the late-career triumph that the great filmmaker, now 85, likely hoped for.

A Coppola friend told The Post that the director felt “very upset that they didn’t give him an award” at Cannes.

And even before “Megalopolis” was screened, whispers circulated about mayhem on the Fayetteville, Georgia, set.

Unnamed sources recently claimed to the Guardian that Coppola tried to kiss topless performers in the movie’s nightclub scene and retreated to his trailer to smoke weed. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Coppola lost his entire art department due to a combination of firings and resignations.

“It was absolute madness, being on set,” a talent representative whose client was among those fired told THR in a January 2023 report.

And one Hollywood insider who knew Coppola told The Post that he isn’t surprised by the alleged madness. On his 1979 classic, “Apocalypse Now,” the vibe was notoriously so intense that leading man Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack and a nervous breakdown.

“If they didn’t do what Francis wanted, I’m sure he would fire them,” the insider said of the “Megalopolis” art crew. “Francis is a director that everyone reveres. Even if he is wrong, nobody tells him.”

A representative for Coppola said in a statement to The Post: “‘Megalopolis’ came in on time, on budget and despite the recent passing of his wife, Francis Ford Coppola was joined by his cast and colleagues in Cannes, including actors who flew in at their own expense.”

Coppola’s wife and longtime collaborator, Eleanor Coppola — who once worried that their daughter, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, had been miscast by the filmmaker for his “The Godfather Part III” — died in April at 79.

Eleanor also chronicled the making of “Apocalypse Now” in the documentary “Hearts of Darkness,” which revealed her husband’s do-or-die tunnel vision.

But “Apocalypse Now” earned masterpiece status — a mantle no one is giving “Megalopolis” so far.

“The script was a mess; it was a bad idea from the beginning,” the Hollywood insider told The Post. “Francis was all over town trying to get money. The script was a mishmash. Francis was going to make this movie no matter what. He tried raising money for it, but he couldn’t. So, Francis took his own $120 million to make this movie. It’s crazy.”

Coppola’s last movie was “Twixt,” a 2011 horror film, while his last hit was “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” which grossed almost $216 million. He is no stranger to putting his money where his movie is. In 1981, he mortgaged his home and car to finish financing “Apocalypse Now.”

“If you make a movie like this, you have to wonder if you’re making it for yourself or for a movie-going audience,” one high-profile producer told The Post. “No directors go out on top and, if this is the movie he wanted to make, in his own mind, he will think he went out with a blast.”

For his part, the octogenarian director told Deadline “Megalopolis” will not be his last film.

It had been festering on his to-do list since 1983, and Coppola told Vanity Fair that he rewrote the script 300 times.

“At least if he had Brad Pitt in the movie, he could make an issue for a big advance,” said the insider. “How does a studio justify spending the millions when there is no box office chance? [Adam Driver] can’t open a movie. He is not a movie star no matter how much they try to make him one.”

Author Peter Biskind, who wrote extensively about Coppola in his book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” told The Post he is not surprised that the filmmaker made “Megalopolis” his own way.

“A lot of these very successful directors have egos as big as their reputations — if not bigger,” Biskind, whose latest book is “Pandora’s Box: How Guts, Guile and Greed Upended TV,” said. “I’m trying to think of someone who would do what Francis did and no one springs to mind.”

The Hollywood insider puts it a little sharper: “Usually you put a script out that nobody likes and it goes away. But when somebody has his own cash, he says ‘f–k you’ and makes it and talks about how dumb the studios are, saying that the studios don’t understand.”

“You can say he is the last of a dying breed,” Biskind told The Post. “The ’70s directors would do anything and give anything to get their movies made … He is still living in that head and in that decade.

“It’s kind of thrilling to see.”