By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --Francis Ford Coppola on Thursday will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival a film on which he has risked everything, one that's arriving clouded by rumors of production turmoil. Sound familiar?
On Thursday, Coppola's self-financed opus "Megalopolis" will make its much-awaited premiere. Other films are debuting in Cannes with more fanfare and hype, but none has quite the curiosity of "Megalopolis," the first film by the 85-year-old filmmaker in 13 years. Coppola put $120 million of his own money into it.
Forty-five years ago, something very similar played out when Coppola was toiling over the edit for "Apocalypse Now." The movie's infamous Philippines production, which would be documented by Coppola's late wife, Eleanor, was already legend. The originally planned release in December 1977 had come and gone. Coppola had, himself, poured some $16 million into the $31 million budget for his Vietnam-set telling of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."
"I was terrified. For one thing, I was on the hook for the whole budget personally — that's why I came to own it," Coppola said in 2019. "In addition, in those days interest was over 25, 27%. So it looked as though, especially given the controversy and all the bogus articles being written about a movie that no one knew anything about but were predicting it was 'the heralded mess' of that year, it looked as though I was never going to get out of the jeopardy I was in. I had kids, I was young. I had no family fortune behind me. I was scared stiff."
Gilles Jacob, delegate general of Cannes, traveled to visit Coppola, hoping he could coax him into returning to the festival where the director's "The Conversation" had won the Palme d'Or in 1974. In his book, "Citizen Cannes: The Man Behind the Cannes Film Festival," Jacob recounted finding Coppola in the editing suite "beset by financial woes and struggling with 20 miles of film."
By springtime 1979, Coppola had assembled an edit he screened in Los Angeles — much as he recently did "Megalopolis." When Jacob got wind of the screening, he threw himself into securing it for that year's Cannes.
"Already considered an event even before it had been shown, 'Apocalypse Now' would be the festival's crowning glory," Jacob wrote. He added: "Ultimately I knew it was Cannes' setting — more than a match for his own megalomania — that would convince him to come."
But Coppola wasn't so sure. The film was unfinished, didn't have credits yet and he still was unsure about the ending. But after some back-and-forth and debate about whether "Apocalypse Now" would screen in or out of competition, it was decided: It would screen as a "work in progress" — in competition.
At the premiere in Cannes, Coppola carried his daughter, Sofia, then 8, on his shoulders. The response to the film wasn't immediately overwhelming.
"'Apocalypse Now,' one of the most ballyhooed movies of the decade, got only a polite response at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday," wrote the Herald Tribune.
At the press conference, Coppola was defensive about the bad press the film received and the attention given to its budget.
"Why is it that I, the first one to make a film about Vietnam, a film about morality, am so criticized when you can spend that much about a gorilla or a little jerk who flies around in the sky?" asked Coppola.
But "Apocalypse Now" would ultimately go down as one of Cannes' most mythologized premieres. The president of the jury that year, French author Francoise Sagan, preferred another entry about war: "The Tin Drum," Volker Schlondorff's adaptation of the Günter Grass novel. The jury, split between the two, gave the Palme d'Or to both.
"Megalopolis," too, will be premiering in competition on Thursday.
The day after the 1978 Cannes closing ceremony, Jacob recalled running into Coppola at the Carlton Hotel, just as he was leaving.
"A big, black limousine was about to drive off. The back door opened and Francis got out," Jacob wrote. "He came up to me, held out his hand and, as he removed a big cigar from between his teeth, said, 'I only received half a Palme d'Or.'"
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More