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A timeline of the controversy surrounding Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million-movie ‘Megalopolis’

August 28, 20240
Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia in “Megalopolis.”

Lionsgate Films/YouTube

On August 21, Lionsgate released a new “Megalopolis” trailer.

It started with quotes from bad reviews of Coppola’s previous movies including “The Godfather,” in an apparent attempt to show how critics were wrong about his iconic films, and would eat their words with “Megalopolis,” too.

However, Vulture quickly discovered that some of these quotes were faked, and The Independent reported that one was taken from Roger Egbert’s review of 1989’s “Batman,” not of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” which Coppola directed in 1992.

Lionsgate pulled the trailer (although it can be still seen on YouTube).

Lionsgate said in a statement to Variety on Thursday: “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis.’ We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

Lionsgate and Coppola’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

August 2024: Coppola confirms he kissed ‘young women’ on the ‘Megalopolis’ set.
Jon Voight at the “Reagan” premiere in Los Angeles.

Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage/Getty Images

Rolling Stone also asked Coppola about casting Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III in the film. The actor has been outspoken about his support for Donald Trump.

When discussing Voight and his political views, Coppola said that he intentionally cast people who had been “canceled.”

“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 canceled at one point or another,” he said.

He added: “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.”