With a movie as divisive as Megalopolis, it should not be a surprise that it’s taking so long for it to head to theaters. After premiering at Cannes earlier this year, the movie polarized critics, who called it both “never boring” and the “junkiest of junk-drawer movies.” So who knows what the people of America will think. Luckily, America will get to decide soon with their own eyes!
Lionsgate, home to John Wick and Katniss Everdeen, has scooped up the theatrical rights for the Francis Ford Coppola’s futuristic epic. The film is set to hit theaters domestically on September 27th. This puts Megalopolis up against Kate Winslet’s Lee Miller biopic, Lee.
The movie follows Adam Driver as Cesar, an “idealistic architect attempting to rebuild New York as an American Utopia.” Driver becomes entangled with the daughter of the corrupt mayor, and the three clash over ideas for a more sustainable future after the city continues to crumble.
Earlier this year, Coppola told Vanity Fair that he had hoped the junk drawer film would be an end-of-year tradition for some. “It’s my dream that Megalopolis will become a New Year’s Eve perennial favorite, with audiences discussing afterwards not their new diets or resolutions not to smoke, but rather this simple question: ‘Is the society in which we live the only one available to us.’” It looks like this movie will have to settle for being an autumnal classic instead.
Megalopolis stars Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire, Grace VanderWaal, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, and Dustin Hoffman. You can see them in theaters on September 27th.