This Movie Was the Biggest 2024 Flop, and Coppola Being the Director Didn’t Help

2024 was big on premieres, giving us hits like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, The Substance, The Brutalist, Nosferatu, and more. But there was one movie we had high hopes for, only to be disappointed. And it's not only the audience that expected more from it, but also the director. But the movie ended up being the biggest flop of the year.

The film we are talking about is Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. A stunning yet flawed ambition from an iconic director, who spent decades nurturing this vision of a futuristic New York City.

For those who didn’t know, Coppola wrote the script in the early 1980s, but due to financial reasons the movie didn’t happen at the time. Just like it didn’t happen in 2001, when he revisited the idea only to fully abandon it in 2007 and yet come back and start it over in 2019.

What Is Megalopolis About?

Set in a futuristic New York City called New Rome, Megalopolis explores themes of ambition, power, and societal transformation. The story centers on a radical dreamer, Cesar Catilinaas, who clashes with the power-hungry mayor, Franklyn Cicero, over the construction of a utopian metropolis, a society on the brink of transformation.

The thing is, the movie's ambition ultimately exceeds its execution. The film's central story struggles shifting too quickly between grandiose ideas and a confusing portrayal of its characters' motivations. The pacing also feels uneven, and despite the gorgeous visuals, the film lacks the emotional depth one might expect from Coppola.

The director's commitment to the project was obvious, as he spent $120-136 million to bring his vision to life. But the film faced significant production challenges, including reports of improvisation on set and shifting character dynamics that left some of the star-studded cast struggling.

“This is very obviously a film made by someone who was not told "no" during its creation. It's also clear that, during the 30 years span it took to make Megalopolis, ideas had been restitched and resewn time and time again; with, certainly, some threads being thrown out in place for more robust materials. As a result, Megalopolis feels less like a "film" and more like an expansive memory quilt,” Redditor mylostlights said.

Because of all this, the movie ended up being a huge commercial disappointment, making 10 times less money than it cost to create. The picture grossed $13.9 million worldwide, which is a joke amount.

Where to Watch Megalopolis?

Well, if you still want to give the sci-fi utopia a chance, you can watch Megalopolis on Prime Video.