A few months ago Francis Ford Coppola was talking about the hopes he had for his $100M passion-project Megalopolis, most notably the ambitious cast he wanted to assemble for the epic drama. Well it appears that the legendary director of The Godfather Trilogy and Apocalypse Now still has some real pulling-power, because despite not helming a feature since 2016’s Distant Vision, he has managed to round up an impressive cast featuring Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne.
Deadline reports that the 20 years in the making Megalopolis, which will be independently financed, written and directed by the 83 year old Coppola, has set Adam Driver (Paterson), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones), and Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy) in the main roles. The film will also reunite the director with Laurence Fishburne, who appeared in 1979’s Apocalypse Now at the age of 14.
In a previous interview Coppola revealed that Megalopolis is the story of an architect who wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster, saying “This story takes place in a new Rome, a Roman epic sent in modern times. The time set is not a specific year in modern New York, it’s an impression of modern New York, which I call New Rome. The concept of the film is a Roman epic, in the traditional Cecile B. DeMille or Ben-Hur way, but told as a modern counterpart focusing on America,” he continued “It’s based on The Catiline Conspiracy, which comes to us from ancient Rome. This was a famous duel between a patrician, Catiline, and the famous Cicero.”
SEE ALSO: 1975: The Year Francis Ford Coppola Dominated the Oscars
Megalopolis has been close before, with Manhattan pre-production shutting down following the events of 9/11, but it now seems as though Coppola may finally get to bring his vision to the big-screen. Let us know if this casting news has you excited for a visit to New Rome by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
