77th Cannes Film Festival: Francis Ford Coppola's 40-Year-Project 'Megalopolis' To Premiere, Eyes Palme d'Or

After months and months of controversy and a 40-year creative process, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited film ‘Megalopolis’ is finally set to premiere at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival next month. In addition to premiering, it will also be competing for the Festival’s top honour, Palme d’Or.

Coppola is set to make a return to the picturesque French Riviera for the Cannes Film Festival, marking 45 years since he first showcased ‘Apocalypse Now’ there. Back then, he clinched the top honour, sharing it with Volker Schlöndorff's ‘Die Blechtrommel.’ Five years prior to that, he had also won the Palme d’Or for ‘The Conversation.’

‘Megalopolis,’ which is the director’s passion project, has been funded with $120 million of his personal finances, and been in development since 1983, when he penned the initial screenplay. After experiencing numerous announcements, delays, and even abandonment over the decades, the film will finally see the light of day at a grand gala screening on May 17.

Starring a massively-talented ensemble cast of Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman, the movies aims to shed light on the rebuilding of a metropolis after it was destroyed.

Not much of plot details are known, except that the film wrapped production last year and as per a report by Guardian, “it has long been considered a difficult beast to film: an epic that spans ancient history and a cataclysmic future, riddled with esoteric and tortuous concepts.”

In March, the film was screened for numerous potential buyers including Universal, Netflix and Sony but it bagged mixed reactions, thus, leaving it to have no distributors attached to it as of yet.

The Cannes Festival chief, Thierry Fremaux, said that “‘Megalopolis’ is a project that he wanted to achieve for so long and he did it independently, in his own way, as an artist. He built the legend of the Cannes Film Festival and it would be an honour to welcome him back, as a filmmaker who comes to present his new movie.”

As for the upcoming film festival, it kicks off May 14. As previously announced, George Miller’s ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ and Kevin Costner's ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ will be up for premieres. The official lineup of films will be announced on April 11.