Francis Ford Coppola, who has previously described Marvel movies as "despicable", is finding that big-budget, VFX-heavy filmmaking isn't quite as easy as he might have anticipated.
According to The Hollywood Reporter (via SFFGazette.com), his self-funded sci-fi passion project Megalopolis has "descended into chaos" halfway through shooting, with the entire visual effects team departing the movie last month and the production designer and supervising art director following since.
Coppola shocked the industry by choosing to fund the $120 million movie himself, but the budget has since increased massively, and it's unclear whether it can move ahead as planned.
Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, and Dustin Hoffman lead the all-star cast in a movie that's said to follow an architect who seeks to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a disaster.
Backdrops using similar technology to The Mandalorian's Volume have been used to bring this world to life, but the challenges and costs involved with that are proving to be considerably larger than expected. Green screen would have saved a lot of money, but Coppola decided to make use of groundbreaking VFX he's now struggling to master.
Apparently, the filmmaker actually fired most of the VFX team in early December (that's not the first time he's done that in his career), with the rest following shortly thereafter. Between multiple firings and resignations, Megalopolis no longer has an art department.
One source tells the trade, "It was absolute madness, being on set," though Coppola is said to be in the midst of replacing the ousted crew members.
Despite being responsible for some bona fide classics like The Godfather and Dracula, the latter - released in 1992 - was his last hit. Coppola hasn't directed a movie since Twixt in 2011, and that was essentially a direct-to-DVD title. This wouldn't be his first project to face issues behind the scenes, with Apocalypse Now - which later won two Oscars - going through similar problems to this sci-fi epic.
Whether the end result will be another beloved classic is obviously hard to say, but we're sure many superhero movie fans will take some delight in Coppola's struggles...