{"id":103951,"date":"2025-08-28T21:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103951\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:11:10","slug":"5-things-we-learned-from-mike-figgis-doc-on-megalopolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103951\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things We Learned From Mike Figgis Doc on ‘Megalopolis’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn \u201cMegadoc<\/a>,\u201d Mike Figgis, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of \u201cLeaving Las Vegas,\u201d dishes about the chaotic making of \u201cMegalopolis<\/a>,\u201d Francis Ford Coppola<\/a>\u2018s self-produced $120 million experimental epic.<\/p>\n

\n\tWho better than Figgis to capture the 83-year-old cinema legend\u2019s creative frenzy as he set off to make \u201cMegalopolis,\u201d a long dreamed-about passion project, with his own money and no distributor on board? Aside from knowing Coppola for decades (he met him while directing Nicolas Cage in \u201cLeaving Last Vegas\u201d in 1996), the British filmmaker has also worked in documentaries, tracing the life and career of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood in \u201cSomebody Up There Likes Me\u201d in 2019.<\/p>\n

\n\tFiggis was on the ground Thursday to introduce the world premiere of \u201cMegadoc\u201d at Venice Classics, and recounted how he found himself embedded with the shoot. It all started after Figgis sent Coppola an email to congratulate him when he heard he was finally making \u201cMegalopolis\u201d and \u201ccheekily\u201d offered to make a fly-in-the-wall doc on the making of the movie in Atlanta. Then shortly before the start of filming, Coppola got back to him and said, \u201cCould you be here next week?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the documentary, Figgis managed to speak with Coppola\u2019s late wife Eleanor Coppola, who visited the set and even celebrated their 60-year marriage anniversary there and died shortly before the movie premiered in competition at Cannes. He also nailed some unfiltered interviews with \u201cMegalopolis\u201d actors Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, as well as Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel and Laurence Fishburne. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe also spoke with key members of the crew, such as production designer Beth Mickle,\u00a0who left the project halfway through shooting, and lifelong pal George Lucas, who describes Coppola as \u201cflamboyant.\u201d Figgis also weaves in archival footage from rehearsals with different cast members in 2001, including Robert de Niro and Uma Thurman, and in 2003 with Ryan Gosling, reflecting the helmer\u2019s previous failed attempts to get the movie made.<\/p>\n

\n\tCoppola\u2019s long-gestating epic was released in the U.S. by Lionsgate. Produced by Tara Li-An and James Mockoski, \u201cMegadoc\u201d will be released in the U.S. by Utopia.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are four things we learned from \u201cMegadoc.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tFrancis Ford Coppola and Shia LaBeouf clashed repeatedly on set.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFiggis documents how tensions mounted between LaBeouf and Coppola, to the point where the latter abandoned set before a scene after LaBeouf asked one question two many about some inconsistency in the story. While speaking to Figgis, LaBeouf is still shocked that Coppola called him the \u201cbiggest pain in his fucking ass,\u201d but shares that the director sent him a long email to apologize the next day, admitting that he had lost his temper but thanked him for \u201cdoing a good job,\u201d even if they will always have \u201ctwo different viewpoints\u201d on pretty much everything. <\/p>\n

\n\tLaBeouf also says he got the part after reaching out to Jon Voight to make amends as part of his rehabilitation therapy. During their chat, Voight mentioned he was about to start filming \u201cMegalopolis,\u201d prompting LaBeouf to say how he much he dreamed of making a film with Coppola. But after being charged with misdemeanor battery and theft in 2021, LaBeouf was \u201cpersona non-grata\u201d in the industry, as he describes it himself. \u201cI was nuclear,\u201d he says in the doc. But two weeks after their phone chat, he heard back and was told \u201che wants you to be in the movie.\u201d The actor was initially terrified he would get fired from the set two weeks into shooting.<\/p>\n

\t\tAubrey Plaza auditioned for \u201cMegalopolis\u201d during the filming of \u201cWhite Lotus\u201d in Sicily and went in despite thinking \u201cthe movie (was) a nightmare.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaza goes totally unscripted as she describes her first virtual encounter with Coppola. \u201cI had the weirdest Zoom\u201d with him, she tells Figgis, who also shows the actual Zoom call in \u201cMegadoc.\u201d In it, Coppola challenges Plaza to improvise a line and rehearse it over and over as different characters. Plaza comes up with \u201cDo you know why I want this job? Because I have $70,000 of student loans, here\u2019s your fucking answer right there!\u201d She says her first reaction after reading the script was, \u201cThis film is a nightmare. Because it was disturbing to me.\u201d She emailed Coppola to tell him what she felt, and \u201cHe said, \u2018Aubrey, how could you say this, how could you say my movie is like a nightmare, my dear Aubrey. I\u2019m writing something about hope. This movie will change the world. This movie has a positive message.\u2019\u201d At another point, Plaza describes Coppola as \u201cWilly Wonka\u201d and jokes that he\u2019s \u201crepressed\u201d like a \u201cgood Catholic boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tCoppola lamented the massive scope of the movie over and over before axing part of the crew.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBesides Shia LaBeouf\u2019s constant questioning, the thing that frustrated Coppola the most during filming was the scope of the movie, which he said was out of control, as if he had created a monster that had been in gestation over 40 years. We see Coppola complain about \u201ctoo many trucks\u201d and his desire to limit visual effects to the minimum, which we see him communicating bluntly to his crew, including Mickle, who had joined \u201cMegalopolis\u201d after wrapping \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy 3\u201d and ended up leaving the movie halfway through. It\u2019s not clear whether she was fired or decided herself to part ways, but she indicates that Coppola had a change of heart regarding key creative decisions and was looking to trim costs. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker clearly didn\u2019t envision a minimalistic film when he embarked on \u201cMegalopolis.\u201d Figgis reveals the lavish spending on the movie, including $27 million for production design and $18.8 million for visual effects, plus $9.4 million just for transportation. \u201cThis is by far my biggest budget,\u201d he tells Figgis. \u201cEven on \u2018Apocalypse Now,\u2019 we had helicopters but nothing like this,\u201d he says with a sigh of exasperation. As Figgis says, instead of crushing Coppola, the dramatic turn of events left him exhilarated. When asked by Figgis if he thrives on chaos, Coppola goes on to explain that he\u2019s not enjoying it but is \u201cconfronting chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tNathalie Emmanuel didn\u2019t want to be filmed eating, Adam Driver hardly wanted to be filmed at all by Figgis, and Dustin Hoffman plays a part that was initially penned for James Caan.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTowards the end of filming, Figgis says he ran into issues with only two actors on the set of \u201cMegalopolis:\u201d Emmanuel, because she didn\u2019t want to be filmed eating, and one of the rehearsal scenes had the actors eat; and Driver, who joined the movie much later, and was uncomfortable with Figgis filming him between takes. Driver, who was nevertheless courteous with Figgis, did agree to give him a quick interview about the making of \u201cMegalopolis,\u201d during which he only praised the \u201cGodfather\u201d director for his generosity with actors.<\/p>\n

\n\tCoppola\u2019s love for actors was echoed by Hoffman, who admits he was \u201cshocked\u201d when he got a call from him, since Coppola had \u201cnever asked (Hoffman) to work with him.\u201d When offering him the part, Coppola told the actor, \u201c\u2019I just wanted you to know that I wrote this part for James Caan, but unfortunately he passed away.\u2019 And of course I took the part not having a clue what it was, and now that I finished it, I\u2019m not sure I feel very different,\u201d Hoffman tells Figgis. He and Plaza had fun on set, improvising a scene where they start arm wrestling, with Hoffman trying to distract Plaza by jokingly asking her if she would like to be romantically involved with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In \u201cMegadoc,\u201d Mike Figgis, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of \u201cLeaving Las Vegas,\u201d dishes about the chaotic making of \u201cMegalopolis,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,49495,75,9557,18259,18260,337,4186],"class_list":["post-103951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-documentaries-to-watch","tag-entertainment","tag-francis-ford-coppola","tag-megadoc","tag-megalopolis","tag-movies","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}