Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis to Get Global IMAX Release
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis has secured a global IMAX release, but there is no date for when it will hit those screens just yet.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told the press at a Cannes Film Festival event on Thursday that the company had committed screens around the world to show Megalopolis. The IMAX release date will likely be announced at a later time, as the film is still waiting to secure a U.S. distributor.
“The film is going to get an Imax release,” Gelfond confirmed, revealing he had met with Coppola in Cannes. “One of the things that we pride ourselves on is being filmmaker-friendly. So we’ve committed to Francis to do a global IMAX release.”
Coppola released the first teaser trailer for Megalopolis on Monday, offering viewers a closer look at what he describes as his “best work ever.”
The film follows Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), an architect who seeks to build a utopian future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants to stick to the status quo. The mayor’s daughter, Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), is on the fence, torn between the two men and their warring views.
Coppola conceived the idea for Megalopolis nearly 50 years ago, in 1977, before he put pen to paper in 1983, but the picture has faced numerous delays and setbacks since. In 2023, halfway through shooting, reports surfaced about issues brewing on set due to a crew exodus and the $120 million self-financed budget ballooning.
A more recent report added to the fraught production by detailing one of several accusations leveled at Coppola about his behavior on the set, with several sources claiming that he pulled women onto his lap during the filming days (though an executive co-producer of Megalopolis defended the director in a statement to IGN).
Megalopolis is one of 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it will have its world premiere on May 17.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X/Twitter here.
