Budget: $120 million [source]
Opening weekend gross: $4 million
Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it’s safe to say that’s not happening.
It would have been THE worst opening for a $100 million movie ever, had it not been for Pluto Nash’s horriffic opening 22 years ago.
Even The New York Times is reporting near-empty screenings of Megalopolis!
I watched it totally alone on Saturday night, never been in a theater alone! I’ve heard there were a lot of walk outs - which I don’t get, theres no accounting for taste of course, but I didn’t think it was leave early bad.
I loved the spectacle and the aesthetic and the fashion, the characters were sorta eh - this is a story where the characters aren’t grounded in realism but are supposed to be stand ins for ideas or movements. Aubrey Plaza was great in it, I actually kinda liked Shia LaBeouf as well. Adam Driver was so-so, but I think that was down to directing. Music choices were odd but I kinda dug it.
I really had a hard time following the plot. Lots of things happened and were resolved in the next scene - felt like about an hour was cut haphazardly. I didn’t have a theatre were an actor was hired to interview Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) breaking the 4th walll butterfly aspect ratio and frame changed enough to keep some semblance of the effect.
spoiler
Cesar can control time, which is interesting but I think is basically just a literalization of him being an Artist able to freeze time (it’s said as much in the movie), not a gaudy super power
Kind of a bizarre trip, glad Coppola got to make his Moby Dick of a movie. It’s way funnier than I was expecting something as pretentious as I figured it’d be - reminded me of Shakespeare style blending of High Art and Low Art, a comparison I’m sure Coppola would love. I bet I’ll watch this again on streaming or Blu Ray or something years later and see a bunch of stuff that didn’t make sense the first go.
Well, I’m glad you got something out of it.