UPDATE: Variety is reporting that, while many U.S. studios have already bowed out, Amazon and Apple are “still in the running” to acquire and give “Megalopolis” a theatrical release, on IMAX, later this fall.
EARLIER: While U.S. distributors continue to complain about its low commercial prospects, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” has been picked up by Le Pacte in France. French newspaper Le Point confirms the film has also set a late September release in France.
Le Pacte is the same distributor as last year’s “Anatomy of a Fall.” No word yet on how much they paid to nab the rights to “Megalopolis,” but I can’t imagine it being that high given that Le Pacte isn’t necesarilly a studio known to dish out an inordinate amount of money for a film.
The early word we’ve gotten thus far is that Coppola’s self-funded $120 million epic is a perplexing film. It’s been described as “batsh*t crazy.” “baffling,” “downright confounding,” “undefinable,” “fit for a museum” and the “work of a madman.”
Last month’s, THR takedown of “Megalopolis,” a nasty piece of writing, surely didn’t help anything. What the report basically stated was that “Megalopolis” studio execs believed the film to be “too experimental” and “not commercial enough” to acquire.