Megalopolis: Release date, cast, plot & more for Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie
One of the most iconic directors is returning to the big screen in 2024 with a scorcher. The Megalopolis premiere isn’t a day you’ll want to miss on your calendars, and we’ve got all the details here.
Francis Ford Coppola, known for some of thebest moviesof all time, hasn’t directed a feature film since Distant Vision in 2016.
Hisnew movieshave been received unfavorably compared to the heights he reached in the ’70s with the likes of Apocalypse Now and The Godfather. Still, rumblings about the scale and cast of Megalopolis have created hype nonetheless.
We’ve seen it, and ourMegalopolis reviewclaims this is a one-of-a-kind epic. So, 2024 might be his big comeback year (although, we’d argue he doesn’t require one with a legacy like this), so let’s break down Megalopolis.
Megalopolis release date
Megalopolis will be released in theaters onSeptember 27, 2024.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 June 2025 and will hit French cinemas in September before getting its global release in the same month.
Independent company Le Pacte will distribute in France while the film secures dates in other territories. Countries with deals include the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria.
It has been a long, rocky road to Megalopolis: Coppola spent 40 years with it on the back burner and millions of his own money trying to finance the project. Now the sci-fi epic is expected to premiere in 2024 following competition at Cannes.
Megalopolis cast
Adam Driver leads the Megalopolis cast, with actors includingNathalie Emmanuel, Grace VanderWaal, Shia LaBeouf, and Zendayarounding it out.
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Coppola has said that star power in film financing is everything, so it makes sense he’d bring in Driver. Known forStar Wars moviesand indie dramas alike, Driver is a household name with a lot of credibility.
Giancarlo Esposito is the corrupt Mayor. If you’ve seen his bad-guy chops in the likes of The Mandalorian, you’ll know he’s more than capable.
Nathalie Emmanuel is the Mayor’s daughter, Julia, who doesn’t enjoy the life she has inherited. You may recognize her from the Game of Thrones cast.
Transformers actor and Peanut Butter Falcon starShia LaBeouf was cast in Megalopolisin 2022.
Hold onto your hats, this full list of actors released by the Cannes Festival’s website is… mega.
Full Megalopolis cast list:
Megalopolis plot
Megalopolis is a “Roman Epic” sci-fi movie set in a destroyed New York City, which an idealist architect who can control time wants to rebuild as a utopia.
The architect, Cesar Caitilina (Driver), is opposed by a corrupt Mayor who aims to maintain a regressive status quo. Pulled in two directions is the Mayor’s daughter, Julia (Emmanuel), a socialite searching for life’s meaning.
Coppola conceived the idea when filming Apocalypse Now in 1977. Inspired by classic movies like Metropolis and Things to Come, he intended to make an operatic science-fiction film with New York as the main character.
The creation of a script and several attempts at getting Megalopolis off the ground took place over the next decades (Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio even did table reads), but Coppola finally landed on the final version in 2019 when he spent $120 million to revive it.
“I remember once I took 130 blank pages and put on a title page boldly announcing ‘Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis’, hetoldVanity Fair. “I pretended it wasn’t totally blank, weighing it in my hands so I could imagine what one day it would feel like, and believe one day it could exist. Then later, once I had a draft, I must have rewritten it 300 times, hoping each rewrite would improve it, if only a half percent better.”
Is there a Megalopolis trailer?
Megalopolis’first look footagewas released on August 08, 2025, and a teaser trailer was released shortly after. you may watch below.
The first look clip is over two minutes long and shows off the golden hour cinematography, epic scale, and leading man.
The teaser trailer is more abstract and teases more of the surreal settings, while showcasing more of the characters from the film.
Megalopolis reviews
Out of Cannes,Megalopolis reviews have shown the movie is divisive. It is rotten on Rotten Tomatoes.
The score will go up and down as more are added, but at the time of writing it sits at50%with 24 reviews.
Hoai-Tran Bui at Inversesaid, “A bunch of ideas smashed together into a garish, baffling, dazzling, kind of atrocious, and totally audacious rejection of the cinematic form. It should never have been made. And yet, now that it has, we should be so grateful that it exists.”
Esther Zuckerman’s rotten review for The Daily Beaststated, “Megalopolis is stilted, earnest, over the top, CGI ridden, and utterly a mess. And yet you can picture a crowded theater shouting along with Jon Voight as he says in one key scene, “What do you make of this boner I got?”
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