The saying “any press is good press” usually doesn’t extend to bad movie reviews, but in Francis Ford Coppola‘s case for his epic Megalopolis, that seems to be the strategy.
The latest trailer for the star-packed, mostly self-funded pet project from the Oscar winner begins with a voice-over from co-star Laurence Fishburne: “True genius is often misunderstood.”
It then leans into the bad reviews Coppola has gotten in the past for movies that became classics, like Apocalypse Now and even its predecessor, the Academy Award-winning epic The Godfather.
In 1972, the latter film was called “A sloppy, self-indulgent movie,” according to a review in The Village Voice.
“One filmmaker has always been ahead of its time,” Fishburne continues, presenting scenes from Megalopolis, for which Coppola assembled an impressive cast, including Oscar winners like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight to Oscar nominees Fishburne and Adam Driver, and Emmy nominee Giancarlo Esposito.
Not coincidentally, the movie, which had its premiere in May at the Cannes International Film Festival, has already had its share of lukewarm reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 53%, but it remains to be seen if time — and The Motion Picture Academy, for that matter — will be kinder to it than some of those critics have been.
Lionsgate will release Megalopolis in theaters on Sept. 27.
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