Francis Ford Coppola Is Prepared to Pay $100 Million of His Own Money to Get His Movie Made
We're big fans of self-financing, but this is wild.
Francis Ford Coppola is a visionary. He's shaped worlds, taken risks, and now, to complete his passion project, he's talking about staking his personal fortune on this artistic endeavor.
Coppola told Deadline, “It has become like a religious war, in that it’s not about anything logical.”
The movie in question is called Megalopolis. It was slated to go in 2000, but 9/11 happened and derailed it. Since then, it's been hard for Coppola to get nailed down. Financing has been hard to acquire since Coppola estimates it could cost anywhere around $100 to $125 million.
Coppola went on to tell Deadline, “I think the big news here is that I am still the same as I was 20 years ago or 40 years ago. I’m still willing to do the dream picture, even if I have to put up my own money, and I am capable of putting up $100 million if I have to here. I don’t want to, but I will do it if I have to.
“I have some private financiers who want to come in on a partner basis, and I’m willing to match their funds, if I have to,” Coppola said. “Obviously the more money I have to put up, the more complications it gives me, but I am capable of doing it. I am capable of going the whole distance if I really had to. It would be hard for me or anyone to put up $100 million to make a utopian dream of a film, but it is not impossible for that to happen.”
Coppola is not trying to make a superhero movie for that much money. He wants to make a sweeping and artistic epic. One that tells the story of the Catiline Conspiracy.
In his words, “This was a famous duel between a patrician, Catiline, and that part will be played by Oscar Isaac, and the famous Cicero, who will be Forest Whitaker. He is now the beleaguered mayor of New York, during a financial crisis, close to the one that Mayor Dinkins had. This story takes place in a new Rome, a Roman epic set 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.”
Other names rumored to be in the mix to star are Cate Blanchett, Jon Voight, Zendaya, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, and James Caan.
Coppola risked his fortune once to make Apocalypse Now, could he do it again and create another classic? Let us know what you think in the comments.
