Opinion | Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Is Exactly the Risk Hollywood Needs

By now you may have heard about how Francis Ford Coppola spent, some say foolishly, over $100 million of his own money to produce “Megalopolis,” his fable of a future utopia, four decades in the making, which finally landed in theaters this week.

The film is not expected to recoup his investment, at least not during its theatrical run, and possibly not ever.

You might think that’s left Mr. Coppola worried, but I have spent a great deal of time talking to him about movies, human history and, quite frankly, how to make the world a better place, and I can assure you he’s not. That’s because he didn’t make “Megalopolis” to make money — any more than he made “Apocalypse Now” to make money, or “The Conversation,” or “One From the Heart,” or “Rumble Fish.” Mr. Coppola is foremost an artist. Even at the beginning of his career, before he had a dollar of his own to spend, his view was simple: He couldn’t afford not to spend his money on film.

This is a concept that we, audiences in America — misguided by an entertainment press that’s obsessed with box office, certain long-held misconceptions about the venality of Hollywood and the rise and (perhaps even gleefully anticipated) fall of great figures — too often struggle to understand. You may not remember the press coverage that led up to the release of “Apocalypse Now” in 1979, which was blithely dubbed “Coppola’s Folly” with a good amount of schadenfreude. In response, Coppola rightly noted that no one chastised Hollywood for spending millions (and millions) on a movie like “Superman II.” Mr. Coppola was characterized at the time as an ego run amok, a madman in the jungle. But “Apocalypse Now” has since turned a fantastic profit, and even if it hadn’t, it would still be “Apocalypse Now,” a film that’s widely considered a masterpiece. “Metropolis,” the 1927 film that’s an obvious influence on “Megalopolis,” was extraordinarily expensive to make, re-edited by its American distributor after its initial release and greeted with many mocking reviews. Yet almost a century later, it endures as a landmark of cinema.

Viewed this way, Mr. Coppola stands as one of the most courageous figures in American film. He is willing to risk not only his own fortune but also his artistic comfort and the laurels on which he could easily rest forever, all for the sake of creating something — this is a word you don’t hear a lot of in the business of American film — different.

Good, bad? That’s up to you to decide. But different? That’s up to him.

Every generation complains that Hollywood is dying or dead. Of course, every generation is more correct than the last. The current prognosis seems especially grim: Movie theaters are in free fall; adults are left to parse the horror films that dominate independent film for offerings of value; and all of this is competing with the vast wasteland of streaming content. This is all the more reason to celebrate someone like Mr. Coppola, as much for what he has created as for what he represents. Under the banner of his upstart, the artist-run studio American Zoetrope, he has always stood for vision: political, technological, artistic, industrial. He’s not just made the films of his dreams, he’s also made them his way — and as a producer, facilitated this for others — with a premium on experimentation and collaboration. Yes, this commitment has bankrupted him in the past. But it has not stopped him.

For Hollywood to survive as the business of film, it must take a lesson from Mr. Coppola and embrace risk. Exactly how much risk is up to each individual, but if Hollywood continues to think audiences have no imagination, it will attract only audiences who don’t like movies. Hollywood can’t compete with YouTube and TikTok for viewers by turning its back on what’s made it distinct: delivering a cinematic experience.

Mr. Coppola’s personal expenditure on “Megalopolis” funded a period of discovery that is essential in the pursuit of something new. The word for that period in Hollywood is “development,” and it essentially no longer exists. The devastating effects of its disappearance are obvious to anyone who has noticed the slow vanishing of original screenplays like the one for “Megalopolis.” Nowadays, you have to know exactly what a movie will be before you start making it, which means, usually, you end up with something that’s already been done.

Hollywood has always been a business — and, it must be said, it’s an intrinsically bad business model. In terms of making fortunes, Wall Street laughs at Hollywood. But that, ironically, is why Hollywood has achieved the spectacular, and it can again: the fact that it’s not the best place to make money. None of the movies you profoundly love were a sure thing when they were greenlit. The reason is simple: They were original, and in some way mysterious, even to the people who made them.

Mr. Coppola understands this, and is willing to put his own money behind his beliefs. In fact, that’s what he’s doing right now: making another movie. It’s a musical.

Sam Wasson is the author of “The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story,” “Fosse” and “The Big Goodbye: ‘Chinatown’ and the Last Years of Hollywood.”

Source images by chekat/Getty Images and Lionsgate.

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