Adam Driver has hit back at claims that Francis Ford Coppola’s $120m passion project Megalopolis is in jeopardy, insisting the situation on set was “all good”.
The 39-year-old Oscar nominee, who is leading the star-studded cast, broke his silence after it was claimed the legendary director, 83, is threatening the March deadline for the epic midway through mass crew strikes and a skyrocketing budget miss shooting.
Starring big names like Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf, the film centers on an architect trying to rebuild New York City after a disaster.
In response to the Hollywood Reporter’s claims in a candid conversation with Deadline, Driver replied: “All good here! I’m not sure which set you’re talking about! I don’t recognize him! I’ve been on sets that were messy and this is far from it.”
His Opinion: Adam Driver has hit back at Francis Ford Coppola’s claims that the $120 million passion project Megalopolis is in jeopardy, insisting the situation on set is “all good” (pictured August 2022)
“The environment Francis creates is focused and inspiring. So far we’re on schedule, making our days good, and honestly it’s been one of the best shooting experiences I’ve ever had.”
He praised the “quick and inventive crew” and the Coppola brand for being “enlightening and caring” before addressing the resignations of the art department and VFX crew.
He said: “Yes, it is true that the art department has been terminated and VFX fired. Not all departments find cohesion in movies, and instead of suffering and making decisions that make a lasting impression on the movie, people quit, get fired, or split up. It’s unfortunate when it happens, but this production isn’t out of pocket compared to other productions.’
Driver explained that the only “madness” he saw on the film’s Atlanta set was that “more productions can’t be so creatively wild and experimental.”
Iconic: The Oscar winner, 39, broke his silence after it was claimed the legendary director, 83, (pictured in 2019) was threatening to cut a March date for the epic halfway through filming amid mass crew strikes and a skyrocketing budget miss
Coppola added that he’s never worked on a film where he’s been “this happy” with the cast, insisting the film is “so on schedule.”
This comes days after it was claimed that after self-funding the $120 million passion project, Coppola made a series of changes to cut costs and save production.
The frantic, last-ditch effort comes halfway through the film’s 80- to 90-day shoot, and when the set — located in urban Atlanta — has descended into “chaos.”
Coppola is no stranger to this sort of mess, though – he famously encountered problems during the filming of his masterpiece Apocalypse Now, which the director feared the film might end up being a “failure” due to the problems.
But that was more than 50 years ago, and times have changed since Coppola’s seminal masterpiece.
Speaking anonymously to The Hollywood Reporter, sources described how the director – who has never made a special effects movie – had first attempted to employ costly virtual technologies seen in productions like The Mandalorian before costs spiraled out of control .
On set: Responding to the Hollywood Reporter’s claims in a candid conversation with Deadline, Driver said: “All good here! I’m not sure which set you’re talking about! I do not know him!’ (pictured on the film’s set in Atlanta in December 2022)
To salvage Coppola’s bottom line, the crews have reportedly reverted to more traditional green screens, making what the filmmaker touted as a philosophical “love story” likely less visually stunning than he intended.
Sources also revealed that the five-time Academy Award winner, whose impressive body of work includes the Godfather trilogy and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, fired nearly his entire visual effects team on filming just last month.
Shortly after, the rest of the team quit, insiders revealed, confiding to the magazine that it’s “been on set since then.”
The insiders described how Coppola – who fired his visual effects supervisor while filming Bram Stoker’s 1992 Dracula – is now desperate to fill the vacancies while cutting costs to ensure the job gets done , even if it means sacrificing some of the end products quality in the process.
“There’s no good answer here,” said one executive producer of the director’s rush to complete the film, which he personally financed and raised through the sale of several of his popular Northern California wineries.
But sources told The Reporter that due to these issues, the film’s original $120 million budget has since been expanded, throwing the cast and crew into chaos amid uncertainty about the film’s future.
‘[Coppola] will spend a lot more money than he intended. You can imagine how much he has already invested. It would be a very bitter pill not to finish it.’
Commentary: Coppola added that he has never worked on a film where he was “so happy” with the cast and insisted the film is “so on schedule” (pictured on set in November 2022).
Directed by: Coppola to speak in December 2022, which stars Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza
The story of Megalopolis is described as “an architect intent on rebuilding New York City as a utopia after a devastating catastrophe,” but the 82-year-old filmmaker calls his dream project “a love story.”
“A woman is a divided loyalty to two men. But not just two men. Every man has a philosophical principle,” Francis told GQ in February.
An official synopsis for the unreleased production states ambiguously that “the fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic tale of political ambition, genius and dangerous love”.
Coppola elaborated late last year: “One of those is her father, who raised her, who taught her Latin on his lap and who embraced a much more classical view of society, the view of Marcus Aurelius.
“The other, the lover, is the father’s enemy but dedicates himself to a much more progressive ‘Let’s jump to the future, let’s jump over all this garbage that has plagued mankind for 10,000 years.
“Let’s find out what we really are, which is an enlightened, friendly, happy species.”
Coppola – who said he’s wanted to make Megalopolis since 1982 – sold part of his multimillion-dollar wine empire to self-finance the film, which will be the first to be shot on Prysm Stages’ LED stage. The sale, which involved multiple properties across Northern California, was valued in the tens of millions.
When asked if he had qualms about personally funding the project, a staunch Coppola replied to Deadline: “What’s the worst thing that can happen to me? Am I going to die and be broke? I won’t be broke.’
The turmoil in the film’s final stages of production stems from how Coppola sent his cast into the heart of the Philippine jungle on the set of 1979’s “Apocalypse Now.”
Filming was plagued by troubles, including severe weather, grave robbers who brought human bodies onto the set and leading actor Martin Sheen suffering a near-fatal heart attack.
The documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola’s wife Elanor, highlighted the chaotic production that spanned three years and produced a masterpiece.
Coppola is no stranger to this kind of mess, though – he famously struggled while filming his masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Filming was plagued by troubles, including thunderstorms, grave robbers who brought human bodies onto the set, and lead actor Martin Sheen (pictured, to Coppola’s left), who suffered a near-fatal heart attack
The turmoil in the film’s final stages of production stems from how Coppola famously sent his cast into the heart of the Philippine jungle – over the course of three grueling years – on the set of the seminal war film, starring Marlon Brando
It remains to be seen if Coppola will manage to catch light in a bottle again with his latest production, with his most recent image being made more than a decade ago with Twixt, the relative flop of 2011.
The legendary Godfather director also cast his younger sister Talia Shire, nephew Jason Schwartzman and Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman for the new film.
The star-studded ensemble also includes Fishburne, Voight, Whitaker, Plaza, Driver, Grace VanderWaal, James Remar and DB Sweeney.
Recipient of five Academy Awards, including two for Apocalypse Now, Coppola is considered one of the greatest directors in American cinema and is a leading figure of the New Hollywood film movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
In addition to his five Academy Awards, his work as a director has also earned him six Golden Globe Awards, two Palms d’Or and a British Academy Film Award. He has yet to comment on the claims in the Hollywood Reporter’s report, released Monday.