New ‘Megalopolis’ Trailer Raises Critics’ Critics’ Buzz, Featuring Adam Driver

Francis Ford Coppola takes audiences deeper into “Megalopolis” with the second trailer for his epic new film, which opens in U.S. theaters via Lionsgate on September 27.

In the new trailer, which begins with the words “True genius is often misunderstood,” Coppola takes a dig at the critics who have panned his most famous films over the years. From 1972’s “The Godfather” to “Apocalypse Now,” the film cuts through excerpts of negative reviews from famous film critics.

“He was a filmmaker who was always ahead of his time,” says the narrator. The new trailer positions Coppola’s latest epic, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews, as a film that will appeal to audiences and stand the test of time, proving critics wrong.

Starring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, and Jason Schwartzman, “Megalopolis” traces the collapse of a future American empire with references to the fall of Rome. In the trailer, visionary architect Cesare Catelina (Driver) imagines a future New York City where radical political figures threaten to “destroy it forever.”

“Megalopolis” represents the culmination of a decades-long project by Coppola, who began working on the “Megalopolis” script in the 1980s. He believed in the film so much that he invested $120 million of his own money in it.

A month after its divisive premiere at Cannes, which nevertheless earned the film a seven-minute standing ovation, “Megalopolis” finally has a theatrical partner in Lionsgate, along with a worldwide commitment from IMAX.

Asked about the state of the film industry at Cannes — in light of the self-financed “Megalopolis” — Coppola said: “I fear that the film industry will become a matter of hiring people to pay their bills because the studios are in huge debt. The job is not to make good films, it’s to make sure they pay their bills. And obviously the new companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, they have a lot of money, so the studios that we’ve known for a long time, some of which are great, may not be around in the future.”

In his review, diverse Chief film critic Peter Debruge said the film was “positively impressive in places and downright ugly in others.”

“Megalopolis is by no means lazy,” Debruge wrote of Coppola, “and while many of the ideas didn’t work out as planned, this is the kind of late-career statement fans wanted from the rebel, who never lost his faith in cinema.”

Watch the new trailer for “Megalopolis” below.