Megalopolis - How to Build a Flop of the Ages | Anatomy of a Failure

[@Filmento]

More new Lionsgate cinema in the next video. But that will be more emo. If you want to get rid of email spam and wipe your data from brokers, check out Incogni with 60% off: incogni.com/filmento

[@rishisanyal8972]

Oh yes, trash that god forsaken Crow reboot, it is a disgrace to the original adaptation, its source material, and the spirit of Brandon Lee!!!!!

[@malusisoko7030]

Hi Filmento. Love you stuff so much

[@Harambe_Banana]

very sexy momento

[@oksanapashenko]

Hey Fil, what’s your thoughts on Arcane S1 and S2, and would you make some videos about it? Cause IMO they are better than Joker 2 and Megalopolis.

[@M.I.D.A.S.]

Hi Filmento i love ur vids and i use them to learn about writing and stuff in my free time and recently there's a show that just finished in netflix called Arcane and it is so good and I feel like there's a lot to learn from the writing in that show. it would be awsome if you were to cover that show because I think as a writer and a critic you'll love the show and if that doesn't really interest you then it offers some good animation and fights too with sci-fi mixed into it. Also I think its one of the very few media where they get the badass female boss trope very well without downplaying other characters. Theres a lot of emotion too. Even if you don't make a video on it, just watch the show it is so good in terms of writing, world building, animation, videogame adaptation, etc.

[@AgentHeroic]

True story: I was watching this movie with friends, and we were playing a drinking game. At one point in the movie we made a guessing game of yelling out the dumbest plot points that could happen and I yelled out that the kid talking to Adam Driver was going to shoot him in the face. When it happened a minute later, all of us started laughing so hard that we had to pause the movie while we cry laughed about just how stupid this movie is.

[@SomeBsMovie]

now that's what i call cinema

[@LuisSierra42]

good times

[@MinorityRespecter88]

And then everyone clapped

[@DFMoray]

You and your friends sound quite prideful

[@kaiokendo]

Flix??? Uuugh pretentious

[@ScadrianGhostblood]

We all know that in 10 years someone will make a 6 hour long video essay about how megalopolis was an underrated and misunderstood masterpiece that predicted the future and that video will get 7mil views in 1 day or something

[@Freenure]

But the movie will still be objectively bad

[@funwithtropes69]

This wouldn't be remembered as Tron. It'll go with the reception of The Matrix Resurrections: a complex misfire that needs another rewrite to work.

[@garrettwood6271]

I think I’m in that camp of people who genuinely enjoyed this movie and adored how over the top every single scene was. I took a coworker who knew nothing and we were both rolling in our seats with laughter

[@ShadwRavn]

You mean 10 weeks

[@yasserabdelkawy7087]

I believe so as well

[@TF2Fan101]

I’ve made this analogy before, and I’ll repeat it here because it’s fitting. In this scenario, Francis Ford Coppola is Andrew Ryan, and Megalopolis is his Rapture. It’s an ambitious idea that ultimately collapsed due to its own ambitions.

[@ElGalgoNegro]

I want a Bioshock where francis IS the bad guy

[@LuisSierra42]

A man chooses, a slave obeys

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

​@@ElGalgoNegro There's a character in Bioshock who resembles his exact type, an artist who thinks his work is better than life itself. That man is Sander Cohen.

[@alantyndall85]

My favourite part was how Coppola decided to represent the fall of the Roman republic exclusively by finding vaguely relevant names in Wikipedia articles and pasting them into the script.

[@Dante-ki4ol]

He only had decades and millions for this project. C'mon.. He's just one guy... with a skilled team...making a movie about how much greater one guy can be over everybody else if they just got out of his way.

[@massgunner4152]

Sounds like the guy who made the Napoleon film that had a lot of nonsense and started spatting about superhero movies when questioned.

[@TomBarrell-f7e]

Giving a director full creative freedom is either the worst or the best thing to do

[@slothboi7131]

Usually it's the worst

[@Morfe02]

More like giving him to wrote the plot lol Only a good writers would put all his elements at once

[@route77productions]

Even Guillermo del Toro when asked if about making a film with no budget limitations or any restrictions he said, “It would be suicide, restrictions are what gives you freedom.”

[@redbearddan2000]

It all depends on the directors. For ones, it's good (Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve), for others, not so much (Zack Snyder, Michael Bay)

[@MKVProcrastinator]

I LOVE COMMITTEE DESIGN

[@garfrockbreadtroll]

the director really said "this has kylo ren and gus fring, it litteraly cannot fail"

[@gaboelexo]

Not really, this started before they were even born, this was just a bad movie and he tried to get people to watch it. Thats all.

[@Emmuzka]

Filmento's plot doctoring is always the best part of these vids. He should have a career as the Hollywood movie plot doctor and movie saver.

[@Grasslander]

Coppola had a vision. But not a story.

[@garfrockbreadtroll]

fucking jumpscare in nnn is diabolical work

[@affenimperator9155]

What is the name of the song?

[@marskalkblixten]

​@@affenimperator9155navras from matrix revolutions I think

[@DavidW.WardJR]

Francis Ford Coppolla complained about superhero movies so he made a bad sci-fi movie and then he complained about Rotten Tomatoes giving it a bad rating.

[@kit_kat_hi]

I have no idea what this film was, however watching it slightly intoxicated with a bunch of friends was one of the best experiences of my life

[@heymistercarter.]

Only someone like Aubrey Plaza can do her best when she's given a character with a name as ridiculous as "Wow Platinum". And as someone who comes up with some wild character names in my screenplays, that's saying something!

[@ptonpc]

She is severely underrated. I don't think I've ever seen her phone in a performance, even when she knows the film / series sucks.

[@daniel_wilkinson]

I looked on imdb. Coppola hasn't directed a financially winning movie since "Bram Stoker's Dracula" in 1992. And if you remember that one, it has a lot of the same visual characteristics as "Megalopolis," in my opinion.

[@garfrockbreadtroll]

Who the fuck starts a video like that? I just sat down iykyk lmao

[@Korra228]

Ay Peetah

[@Bullz_eye47]

This film is so cinema i could literally smell Francis Ford Copolla's fart when watching it, truly a cinema moment of all time.

[@nickthebabba7767]

That’s crazy, I could literally smell his armpits while I was watching it

[@PedroSantos-um4dn]

This movie feels like a dream. You have 2 main plots, 10 subplots, 30 characters, super powers, different settings and nothing makes sense. There's no conection between many of the characters, the settings or the plots. It isn't a bad movie, it's bad at being a movie.

[@crispy_338]

>Criticizes Marvel >Makes a movie worse than Marvel 🤔

[@Korra228]

Old man yelled at cloud and found out

[@MinorityRespecter88]

I don't know, I haven't been to watch a single Marvel movie this decade, but I went out of my way to watch this.

[@massgunner4152]

​@@MinorityRespecter88my condolences

[@mememanbehindtheshadows546]

​@@MinorityRespecter88my condolences 😢 😞💐

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

​@@MinorityRespecter88 Norm's is fine dining when all you're surrounded by is Taco Bell.

[@CivilWarMan]

I'm guessing Coppola had an image in his head that this movie would be viewed as this deep metaphor about filmmaking (ie Adam Driver's character is supposed to represent him, building the futuristic mega city is supposed to represent him creating a genius artistic movie masterpiece, and all of the people who oppose Adam Driver's character are supposed to represent the mean studios who wouldn't give him money because they wanted to make more superhero movies). Especially since the Academy absolutely adores high concept movies that are metaphors for filmmaking as a profession and wax poetic about how filmmakers are the best and smartest and most important people in the universe.

[@nicketsirvoicar2301]

Well done for trying to make sense out of Megaflopolis.

[@vegidio]

Have you ever imagined what a Neil Breen movie would look like if he had a budget of 120 million dollars? Now you don't need to imagine anymore.

[@cynicalperson161]

Man I wished Neil was given a budget this high for a movie 😂

[@chickendrawsdogs3343]

What the fuck is this year 2024 when classic, established directors just went and dunked on their own filmography???

[@Levente20]

i think it has to do with panic of old age. they cant accept that time has passed and they think they are still in their prime time no matter what

[@deufvelli]

he just wanted to do it for a long time and he did. and probably pissed because no one values his work. pretty simple, i don’t think he even tried to get money on it, why, if you have no investors to return it

[@CATDHD]

exception is George Miller with Furiosa

[@massgunner4152]

​@@deufvelliinvestor or not it's important that the project you're selling makes you profit because that's money you need to get back for whatever you're doing, contrary to popular belief millionaires are not economically imvincible. The director feels washed out tho.

[@Desaki65]

My favorite parts of this film were when the audience busted out laughing when it was obvious those moments were supposed to be Very Serious And Important. * chef's kiss *

[@GibsonHReviews]

I don't care what anyone says, this is one of my favourite movies of the year. I saw this opening day and I was laughing my ass off throughout the whole thing in an almost empty cinema.

[@Minecraftian55]

The thought of seeing someone laughing like mad in an empty theater is strangely unsettling.

[@leder8225]

@@Minecraftian55 in the mouth of madness

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

It's a great comedy in the same way in Rebel Moon is, but of course that's not either director intended.

[@redbearddan2000]

Francis Ford Coppola: "Marvel is nonsense without a real plot and story" Also Francis Ford Coppola: *makes a nonsense movie without a real plot or story*

[@kaiserzaiser5002]

Coppola is the current form of "old man yells at cloud" meme

[@funwithtropes69]

I feel bad for Coppola. In spite of his hypocrisy for pulling a Scorcese with his opinion on recent blockbuster films like the MCU films, he invested tons of money for a horrible film even worse than the films he had disdain at. Shame considering his films like The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now are some of the greatest films ever.

[@vattacukor]

Don't feel too bad for him though. He bullied and threatened the victim of his pe-do protégé.

[@Morfe02]

Avengers not only works because of the elements but because of how they rationalize them and because of the actors Example: Hulk in the MCU is not presented as "Bruce Banner was in a nuclear test" but as "Super soldier experiment but with Gamma radiation" meaning you get a connection with Cap America And second the actors such as Nick Fury, Black Widow and Coulson are introduce in Iron Man 2, Coulson even Hawkeye are also in Thor 1, you get barely a connection of characters into the big movie so you also get the connection of the big characters like Hulk or Thor If you wanted to compare a movie with another movie choose any one of Scorcese lmao you got Romans (italians), bunch of characters like 10 or more and a crazy plot Casino, Goodfellas a lot of shit happens and you understand all, in fact, you even remember the secondary actors because of the good scenes

[@One_step_above_is_here]

Thanks for that opening, definitely didn't scare my old father. But seriously what the hell dude

[@nickthebabba7767]

What the hell was that beginning

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

I know right, I've seen corn with more subtlety

[@carlosquevedo8239]

Using the MCU as an example of good film making against this mess of a movie... Please accept my like.

[@christscrackers647]

Francis Ford Coppola was so far up his own ass that he essentially made his own epic when no one else wanted to make it for him. It turned out too be a HUGE clusterfuck.

[@bradygorman6510]

This movie was a RIOT! Terrible film, but about halfway through the audience started to "get" what kind of movie it is and the theatrical experience was a blast

[@bornon18]

Easily the worst movie of 2024. And for a year that had Rebel Moon 2, Joker 2, Madame Web and Borderlands, that's quite an impressive feat.

[@deufvelli]

I don’t this this movie is worse thn your list. Its definitely plotless, boring, messy and pretentious, but at least its not a preachy cheap woke money grabbers, RM2, J2, MW are for no one, but Megalopolis is for Coppola.

[@armansomething]

“This shit sucked Megacockolis”

[@Dante-ki4ol]

The Randian premise is so absurd, especially for someone in the film industry, where collaboration is required. The fantasy of 1 Man & 1 Invention is so childlike its embarrassing he even thought of it.

[@markn866]

Rand is not anti-collaboration though. If anything, someone making that logical leap misunderstands Rand.

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

It would've worked if his Randian premise was shown to backfire in the end.

[@rishisanyal8972]

Filmento here is going to take us to the CLUUUUB!!!!!

[@louayghanjati5056]

Up in da club!

[@takyON207]

Yeees

[@anticitizenokapi4634]

"Its Megalopolis time." - Francis Ford Coppola, defender of pedarests, film genius

[@whatsgood4320]

Man, a modern-day fall of Rome sounds like such a good movie, especially if it was shot like Succession. I have no clue how they made it look like a kid was playing with Legos.

[@whattowatchwednesdays]

This right here is why I watch Filmento over literally any other movie review channel. I agree with basically every point made in this video. Honestly, if Megalopolis had any of the quick fixes you came up with as actual plot points, it would have been so much better.

[@thexsoar]

Wow, didn't even know this released.

[@ItsIntelligentDesign]

Look, I’ve not seen the film but I doubt Coppola himself considers the film a flop given that he basically self-finance a $120M film and didn’t have to deal with any studio restrictions as a result. Like sure, it won’t make its money back, but it’s rare for a film to be released that is so uncompromisingly the director’s vision that my that metric alone it should be considered a success.

[@Lotsolov4u]

I take my hat off to you for watching this and Tenant with enough of a critical eye to make these when i found them so unbelievably hard to focus on

[@StarWritterSW]

Back in Cinema Aurora, when Hollywood wasnt even a thing and films were starting, directors were insane. One of these minds was the brilliant (and controversial because DUH) D. W. Griffith. He was both a legend and insane Legend because he created some of the most used shots and techiniques used today. Insane because pretty much all his movies were financial disasters, to the point of himself spending mostly of his cash on doing it and literally creating cities and scenarios from the ground up... Just to burn it down, drown it and explode it, even having ACTUAL casualties Copolla is really trying to bring old movies feelings

[@rga1605]

If Coppola said that if he had written the script when he was 14, I'd totally believe it. This movie was funny in the beginning, due to all the weird acting (Emersonian mind), but it does overstays its welcome - a group of pompous theater kids from some small city could've make this movie for a thousand dollars and it'd be the same. Also I think that the time stopping abilities are more metaphorical, in some weird ode to art that is much, much more awkward than uplifiting as Coppola imagined to be. Also I wish the baby flew in the carpet like Aladdin in the end

[@maxxpower3d6]

this movie feels like the mediocre Hollywood adaptation of an anime that doesn't exist

[@RichardBarron_]

Liked at 3:30❤

[@verlinswarey507]

Yep!

[@Morfe02]

Some guy say "is all ADs of fragances at once" and he didnt lie because in the same video you have equally the same scenes 😂😂 Like Invictous and the gladiators lmao

[@AgentHeroic]

I watched this movie and it was hysterically incompetent; truly one of the dumbest things ever - but when your movie also includes Adam Driver acting like a hyped up reddit mod, Shia Labouf's pubes as he's seduced by his aunt, and Jon Voight shooting someone with a tiny bow, I also think its the most unintentionally funny movies of all time.

[@rc1982]

The poetry of a Marvel movie being an exemple of much better movie than a Coppola's movie.

[@romank90]

Movie description feels like a huge stack of "high concept buzz-words". It feels like somebody was trying to squeeze "Foundation" or "Martian chronicles" into a single movie. You can assume there where some epic story lines - but everything is at 16x speed.

[@CarlFredrik-uo1cu]

Would love to see Filmento cover some David Lynch movies. Lynch has finnish ancestry, so it would be fitting, lol

[@balinttoth9287]

Might just be your best video to date!! Congrats, loved every second of it!

[@TheKaijuKing54]

Petition for Filmento to cover Transformers One (2024) 👇

[@habanerojones2169]

Me: That was stupid. Friends who watched it with me: You just didn't get it. Me: Exactly.

[@PerfectedCeII]

Bring back movie mento, be a force of nature

[@Sharpester-m4o]

no wonder the film was in development hell for years.

[@X2yt]

Man, at this point having Adam Driver in your movie is a recipe for failure. Dude's anti-box office draw, he's a box office repellent. Dude might be a good actor, but out of his last 12 movies only like 4 made profit or broke even, the rest were massive box office failures. Dude has that lancer luck.

[@kumbaya69421]

I think they should just not have him on advertising at all. Just let him show up out of nowhere

[@Gamingraptorpro]

A new wannabe blockbuster. Emphasizes the "wannabe".

[@docsamson198]

Are we sure the same man directed The Godfather?

[@Morfe02]

Is not the first flop of Coppola

[@bilbosaggins9793]

He had a dream, went with it and it failed. Thats still far more respectable than 90% of the sequel and "remastered" slop coming out of hollywood lately.

[@MadcapMatt]

I don't think I knew what was going on in this movie for more then 20 or 30 minutes total. I still enjoyed the visuals and was happy to see it on a huge IMAX screen. I remember reading somewhere that he didn't care if nobody saw this movie because he made the movie exactly as he wanted to. I can appreciate that he finished his passion project the way he wanted to at the very least.

[@hkmp57]

Always thumb up for BFG division

[@latayesha]

I was hoping you were gonna do a video on that movie! So glad you did! Keep up the good work!

[@SwizzleMix]

The demonstration with TikTok Shrek unironically sent me to the floor in laughter, Filip Mentos has done it again

[@victorjozek5384]

Coppola criticising Marvel movies while writing a story about a super human character destroying new york.

[@DaBIONICLEFan]

This film might well have never even come out. It hasn't been in any cinemas, no adverts, no trailers - nothing.

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

The biggest problem was that he couldn't just choose one setting, all of the film's marketing involved a futuristic version of rome but then when you watch the movie, it's modern New York and then 50's New York and then Rome 2077. Any one of these settings could have made a decent backdrop on its own but he couldn't pick just one.

[@TheKaijuKing54]

Before this movie was released, I found it amazing that Coppola self-funded his film when no Hollywood studio would back it. However, after watching the movie, I now understand why it was never picked up.

[@bullseyestudios9068]

You filmento, are a visionary

[@thokozanilukhele3029]

Iove these ❤Swaziland 🇸🇿

[@ecmproductions11]

What I will say is I didn't see a single ad for this until it was out for like a full week. I did watch it in theaters. I see a new movie around 2-3 times a week. I couldn't make a single thing out of this movie. This is a forgettable mess.

[@SugarRushTimes2030-gs3qp]

I write for a hobby and your observations and analysis serves as great teaching for writers in general. One would hope Hollywood employs readers that have your type of insights for rewrites before green lighting. With that said I understand Megalopolis is a big budget Unicorn considering studio involvement was bypassed, but Coppola should know better

[@jasonblundelldobebussing]

Adam Driver? You mean that Driver guy from the movie "Drive", who drives 😮

[@ptonpc]

If Adam Driver can stop time, he could have been a fantastic villian. Manipulating events, people, setting up 'accidents' to eliminate them. All for 'the greater good' of the city. Then you could have had characters trying to work out what is going on, then doing whatever they can to prevent him from succeeding.

[@chouderr1089]

did they like have the actor's families in a basement somewhere? how where they convinced to make this??

[@Morfe02]

He hired a bunch of banned actors, the old people, an actress Cameo and i think Shia Lebeauf About Gus Fring and Kylo Ren i dont fucking know how much money they wanted

[@Werewolf.with.Internet.Access]

@@Morfe02 Promise you they did it for the “prestige” of working with Coppola.

[@SebastianAceFawkes]

A New Low for the Director of 'The Godfather'. How the Mighty Fall.

[@LycanVisuals]

So back to the cclllllluuuuuuubbbb

[@easamisleh4336]

Filmento putting Navras as the intro makes me happy.

[@kuribayashi84]

I missed this flick when it came out but the more I watch/hear/read about it, the more curious I get. But I guess I'll wait for the directors cut Coppola has announced (he said "his vision was supressed"). If I have to watch this flick and embrace the insanity, I might as well do it properly.

[@ObsoleteEvil]

Imagine a film where instead of an architect who can freeze time, they can move between different eras and they're doing so to create their Megalopois vision for New York. Fill in the blanks with some melodrama and character development/introspection and I think it could be a Christopher Nolan level film.

[@arbazna]

That "Navras" opening... Neat!

[@Shyllard]

I really want to have a double-feature of this and The Brutalist when the latter comes out. It could be a pairing for ages.

[@MurasakiTsukimaru]

Mind you, half of his production crew left because he fired them for not "Creating his vision properly" or because they quit in protest when he fired the others

[@The_Com-Mentor]

"Tell Francis he gotta run this stuff by me next time" -Bruce Willis

[@hug-the-raccoon]

This is how I found out that this movie exist. That $120 Mill should be on marketing or something.

[@ethangerdis6213]

Megalopolis was painful to sit through, but I was proud of myself that I made to the credits, much like when I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special

[@thomasprice7893]

2:35 LMFAO that clock looks like it was copy/pasted out of 'Food Fight!'

[@neonxraven99]

that's wild intro 😂

[@dulio12385]

Adam Driver is the equivalent of Sam Worthington for high brow art films. They keep trying to make him happen but he just keeps crashing and burning. Like the moment you see Adam Driver, yup you know its gonna suck.

[@Joshua-do7vo]

What's sad is that while the movie was a flop, it was an attempt at something new. The director took a risk when Hollywood refused to. We need more risktaking in the film industry to allow creativity to blossom. Shame that this instance, the risk didn't pay off.

[@mstaken4me]

... around ... 4:00/4:30 ... there's a scene with people riding in chariots. I'm sorry, but is that the music from the actual film? Because, fuck; that's literally just the theme from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' with some swapped notes. Fellow commenters, / @Filmento - please lmk if that's actually the case - I produce music for a living and will happily provide a b2b video, lol. I'm *guessing* @Filmento just swapped it out for the 'Pirates' soundtrack, but ... if not ... that's - just ... bloody hilarious.

[@barrelranger1]

that's a piece from Gladiator, by Hans Zimmer, who did a lot of the work on Pirates of the Caribbean at around the same time, which is why it sounds so similar (though that was largely helmed by Klaus Badelt)

[@barrelranger1]

it also draws heavily from Holst's 'The Planets', specifically 'Mars'

[@planescaped]

This movie is the _bad_ kind of self-indulgence. Yikes. Just goes to show that the line between someone writing terrible sonic fanfiction, and a best selling author, isn't as far as we might think...

[@tommi7381]

10:33 The clip of finnish dub Bob the builder was quite suprise to see I must say

[@diogosapha2986]

Actually interested in seeing a well-formed critique of this, seeing as this is one of the best movies of the year and every argument against it boils down to "it's really whacky"

[@batman3217]

I actually never heard of that movie.

[@RevanR]

3:50 ZA WARUDO!

[@universesbiggestdouchebag8350]

His ahh ain't getting over heaven

[@Enpamonhado]

If you watch Megalopolis as a comedy movie with a couple of beers it really works it

[@jamez6398]

I admire the director of The Godfather 2, perhaps the best movie ever made, spent 100 million of his own dollars to make this abstract art movie, but in terms of abstract art movies, it is no Mulholland Drive, Men, Enemy, The Lighthouse, Vanilla Sky, Poor Things, Mother!, The Fountain, The Tree of Life, I've Been Thinking of Ending Things, or Beau is Afraid. I am also a bit apprehensive about big budget big swings like this that are actually bold and daring being put into production that actually suck and lose loads and loads of money because it make studios able to point and say, "That movie got loads of money and failed. We should only give micro budgets to new IPs and only give bigger budgets to established IPs forever." It sets a bad precedent.

[@Morfe02]

Poor Things sucks ass so much but at least has a point for the plot

[@jamez6398]

​@@Morfe02 I thought it was funny but I have an extremely weird and messed up sense of humour

[@Morfe02]

@@jamez6398 i dont like It because of the message of "women good, men bad" insert half movie Literally the only fucking good "man" is a black person i can't take when you barely disguise the message and people claim is a SMART MOVIE 10/10 Believe me i have no issues into people liking the movie but saying is good or a masterpiece is hilarious, maybe from the actor direction but this "message" is dump into the throat in a lot of movies and TV series. Just pick anything of Disney like Acolyte or whatever with a female protagonist and a make villain 🤣

[@jasonblundelldobebussing]

Coppola be like: OPA gangnam style

[@dnds4]

7:22 A film LIKE The Matrix starring An Architect with high concepts that may (read:does) feature Laurence Fishburne but may not connect anything ...is The May Trick Overloaded.