Francis Ford Coppola’s grand opus ‘Megalopolis’, which was conceptualized decades ago, finally released last weekend. While critics were not expecting much wonders from the “Godfather” director’s first movie release in 13 years, it missed on even those somber expectations and could rake in just $4 million in its opening weekend.

DreamWorks Animation family film “The Wild Robot” which also released alongside Megalopolis outperformed expectations with weekend box office collections of $35 million in the US and Canada. Here’s why Megalopolis flopped badly at the box office and what critics and audiences are saying about the movie.

Megalopolis Was Coppola’s ‘Dream Script’

Coppola, who was behind some of the greatest films of all time, like The Godfather trilogy and The Conversation, previously termed Megalopolis as a “dream script.” He got the idea for the movie more than four decades back while making the hit film “Apocalypse Now.”

The movie has had several false starts over the years and at one point, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio were interested in the movie. It eventually featured Adam Driver in the leading role of Cesar – a forward-thinking architect looking to rebuild the fictional city of New Rome into a utopian city against the wishes of the mayor – a character played by Giancarlo Esposito (known for his role as Gus on Breaking Bad).

In an earlier interview, Coppola told the Wall Street Journal that he wants audiences to ask themselves: “Is the society we’re living in the only one available to us? How can we improve it?” while watching Megalopolis.

Meanwhile, even though Coppola put $120 million of his own money into the movie, making money from Megalopolis wasn’t the primary motive for him. Ahead of the sci-fi movie’s release, Coppola told The Associated Press “Everyone’s so worried about money,” while adding, “I say: Give me less money and give me more friends.”

Why Did Megalopolis Tanked at the Box Office

Many crew members involved in making Megalopolis found its production quite chaotic stressing that Coppola getting engaged with a property development while making the movie only made things more erratic.

“It was like watching a train wreck unfold day after day, week after week, and knowing that everybody there had tried their hardest to help the train wreck be avoided,” said a crew member.

Other critics argued that Coppola, who has directed just three movies since 1997, is out of touch with the current times. “I think Coppola still lives in this world where, as an auteur, you’re the only one who knows what’s happening, and everybody else is there just to do what he asks them to do,” said a crew member who requested anonymity.

The frequent exits in the crew teams did not help matters and even while making the movie the members perhaps realized that it wouldn’t gel well with the audience. “We were all aware that we were participating in what might be a really sad finish to his (Coppola’s) career,” said a crew member.

Megalopolis Did Not Receive Positive Reviews

Megalopolis received mixed reviews at best during a private screening earlier this year with one executive describing the movie as “batshit crazy.” Another viewer said, “It’s so not good, and it was so sad watching it … This is not how Coppola should end his directing career.” Not all found the movie a disaster though and director Gregory Nava described it as a “brilliant, visionary masterpiece” after the screening.

To be sure, such contrasting reviews are not new for Coppola who is an experimental filmmaker, and even “Apocalypse Now” initially failed to win over critics and audiences. However, those reviewing Megalopolis are not impressed by its editing, screenplay, and visual effects – and some even find the direction and writing to be below par.

While these are still early days for Megalopolis, both critics and audiences seem unimpressed by the movie. Megalopolis has an approval rating of only 50% on Rotten Tomatoes while Wild Robot has a 98% approval.

2024 Started on a Somber Note for the Movie Industry

2024 started on a somber note for the movie industry and the Memorial Day weekend was the worst weekend since the ’90s with domestic collections of only $126 million. For context, in the past, it wasn’t unusual for a single movie to clock collections above that level during the weekend which is quite popular among moviegoers.

This year’s box office collections picked up over the summers and while they were still below the comparable period last year the collections gradually improved. Meanwhile, animation movies have been the flavor this year with Disney’s “Inside Out 2” being the best-performing movie this year.

Megalopolis is not the first movie to have tanked at the box office in 2024 and with opening weekend collections of $32 million, “Furiosa” grossed the lowest total for a Memorial Day Weekend top-grosser since 1995. The horror romance film “Lisa Frankenstein” and the superhero movie “Madame Web” also performed poorly at the box office.

Streaming Onslaught

The growing popularity of streaming is one of the reasons movies haven’t been performing as well. With consumers spoilt for choices for entertainment, moviemakers would need to make features that can lure people into cinemas. Movie studios continue to dump tens of millions of dollars into massive projects, just hoping that they can hit it big at the box office.

Incidentally, under CEO Bob Iger who took over the position in Q4 2022, Disney has decided to focus on the quality of its movies while cutting down on the number of features it churns out every year. Other production houses might also need to rethink their strategies as while every movie can’t be extraordinary, the days of ordinary movies also doing good business at the box office look in the rearview now.

As for Megalopolis, the Coppola directorial venture has failed to strike the right chord with most viewers and while there is still hope that the movie picks up, the odds of it happening seem quite low.