Megalopolis Trailer: Francis Ford Coppola Aims To Pass The Test Of Time With Adam Driver Sci-Fi Epic

Do you remember that one time the marketing team for Tom Hardy's Krays movie Legend took a two-star review and hid it in the poster, sneakily making it look like a five-star recommendation? Well, no such subtleties are to be found in the latest trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's self-funded sci-fi epic Megalopolis, which sees the man behind The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker's Dracula take aim at critics by putting takedowns of his long-since canonised classics front and centre of the promotional push for his long-gestating passion project. The purpose, self-evidently (and as underlined by some smooth Laurence Fishburne narration), is to counter the mixed reviews the movie was met with at this year's Cannes Film Festival with the cocksure assertion that "true genius is often misunderstood." Check out the new trailer below to decide which side of the divide you fall on:

"A sloppy self-indulgent movie," writes Andrew Sarris of The Godfather; "A spectacular failure" hails John Simon's Apocalypse Now review; "A beautiful mess" reads Owen Gleiberman's Dracula critique. It's a bold opening gambit to build hype for your new movie to be sure (especially given the dubious existence of the accredited critic quotes featured), but as Fishburne talks up Coppola's visionary status over shots of Adam Driver's Cesar Catilina seemingly reversing time, Aubrey Plaza gorging on fruit from a chaise longue, and the visually striking neo-Greco architecture of the sci-fi blockbuster's titular utopia/dystopia, we'd be lying if we said we weren't at least fascinated to find out more about the wild things the legendary moviemaker's latest has in store for us.

Here's the lofty official synopsis for the movie: "Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.” Also among the movie's constellation of stars are Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, and Dustin Hoffman.

Are we about to witness the birth of the next The Godfather? Or will Francis Ford Coppola's vineyard-funded, mega-budget magnum opus end up being the cinematic equivalent of a dead horse's head on the bed for FFC? We'll find out when Megalopolis arrives in UK cinemas on 27 September. As Plaza's Wow Platinum — yes, her character is called Wow Platinum — would say, "One, two, three — yippee, yee!"