7mo ago

With a budget of $120 million, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" grossed only $4 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the worst box office openings for a $100M+ movie to date.

Budget: $120 million [source]

Opening weekend gross: $4 million

Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it's safe to say that's not happening.

It would have been THE worst opening for a $100 million movie ever, had it not been for Pluto Nash's horriffic opening 22 years ago.

Even The New York Times is reporting near-empty screenings of Megalopolis!

boxoffice @lemmy.world

TheImpressiveX @lemmy.ml

7mo ago

With a budget of $120 million, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" grossed only $4 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the worst box office openings for a $100M+ movie to date.

movies @lemm.ee

TheImpressiveX @lemmy.ml

7mo ago

With a budget of $120 million, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" grossed only $4 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the worst box office openings for a $100M+ movie to date.

100 comments

Literally never heard this movie was being made except for 2 posts here, both of which happened after the movie opened in theaters. Marketing team obviously wasn't doing shit.
- Considering he had to finance everything himself, there wasn't a ton of marketing and it's a very controversial movie (in the sense that no one wanted to help him with financing/releasing it)
- I only know about it because Aubrey Plaza has been around the latenight shows

Even adjusting for inflation, Pluto Nash still wins. It opened to $3.5M in today's money.
I feel like there hasn't been much marketing for Megalopolis. Could be a factor. I'd say the long run time doesn't help, but Oppenheimer counters that point.
- Oppenheimer had the advantage of people knowing basically what the story was about. The poster for Megalopolis doesn't really tell me what it's about beyond Adam Driver apparently being an architect.
  It's the same reason everything is a reboot or remake: A lot of the marketing cost has already been taken care of with the first movie.
- Yeah I never heard of this.
  
  Agreed, not heard of it outside Lemmy. Perhaps I’ve insulated myself from ads a little too well.
- This is the second time I have heard about this film, the last time being the release of the first teaser trailer. Studios love to spend 70 million marketing budgets on broadcast TV advertising and completely missing their target audience. In the case of sci-fi, most of us are more responsive to online marketing campaigns and this film has the online presence of an Amish priest.
  
  In the case of sci-fi, most of us are more responsive to online marketing campaigns and this film has the online presence of an Amish priest.
  Even then, who is this movie for? Scifi nerds who liked Cloud Atlas but wished it was more incoherent and Roman themed?
- aubrey plaza was on the daily show talking about it, so i assume they were doing the usual TV talk show tour.
- Pluto Nash cost over 100 million dollars to make?
- You need to adjust the Pluto Nash budget for iflation as well. It was a ~$100 million budget in 2002.
  Makes me wonder how many other movies did worse when we consider adjusting their budget to inflation.

This is the first time I'm hearing about this movie, likely terrible advertising plan
- Really? I've been hearing about it for months. It was having trouble finding a distributor for theaters, despite the budget and the star power, which was seen as a bad sign. It's being marketed as Francis Ford Coppola's last big budget movie.

Maybe if the trailer didn’t tell you how great and misunderstood Coppola and his works have been and how stupid people were for panning them when they came out, more people would have been compelled to see it. Not that it was pretentious, just arrogant to say hey come watch this this sure fire masterpiece. Also it looks like politics mixed with Inception so maybe too much for people to bother right now? Having said all that I would like to see it, just don’t need to go to the theater for this one.
- Having said all that I would like to see it, just don’t need to go to the theater for this one.
  From what little I've heard, there's a 4th-wall-breaking scene that involves one of the characters interacting with an audience member (the theater apparently has someone come in and participate). So if nothing else, I guess you could see it in theaters for the novelty?
  
  Ah, so from what I'm reading it's confusing now, but will be more confusing at home with a broken 4th wall break segment.
  
  If I wait for the Torrent release an FBI agent is going to come to my house for that?
  
  They had this at the screening I went to. I wonder what they'll do for the home release version?
  
  I think that was just in Cannes or something.
  Edit: It seems I'm wrong! Basically it's up to the cinema to include it, but it doesn't change all that much. I had my information from reading a review by a reviewer who thought he had witnessed something completely unique.
  
  My theater didn't do that. There was one segment that was framed a bit differently, which I suspect is where the interaction would have been, but it played more like a short press conference and had no interaction.
  
  This most certainly did not happen in my viewing. I am now curious what scene this would have been or if it was just cut out.
  
  If you want masterclass 4th Wall, Watch Fleabag. Great series
- Also, if your paraphrasing is accurate and we’re not playing a game of telephone here, regardless of how past experiences were later treated that’s kinda like saying “you’ll probably hate this unless you’re the kind of person who’ll still only appreciate it once a few critics tell you to in a few years.”
- And they were made-up or misattributed quotes, too.
  https://variety.com/2024/film/news/megalopolis-trailer-quotes-movie-critics-1236114212/

Are these Studios just getting ripped off by marketing? I literally never saw an ad for this. The first time I saw a trailer for this film was in an article about how bad it was bombing. Where was all the marketing money going?
- Every second or third post on Lemmy is about privacy or ad-blocking or piracy or pi-holes or removed about ad injection.
  Not that any of that is a bad thing. (The removed isn't bad, the things are.)
  But you can't be surprised when you don't hear about shit. When you reclaim your eye-holes from Madison avenue you need to seek things out.
  
  yeah but this is a movie, not a product. we usually hear about them from people, not necessarily ads. we might not see many ads but other people we talk to and hear from do, and practically no one in my life and media consumption talks about it. compare that to Barbie.
  
  I'm not sure where on Earth you got the impression that I only consume media through Lemmy.

Pretty sad, this was apparently Coppola's drram movie he always wanted to make
- I wonder if it's any good, all I hear is how little money it made like that means anything to anyone but the producers.
  
  its annoyingly complex with little payoff. i know watching it a few times will bring it into focus, but thats a weird requirement.
  
  The only people I have seen saying good things about it, are the same people who think hating what's popular is a personality trait.
  
  It's bad. If it was good, the story would have been pretty different.
  Obviously some people will still like it. But even those will have to admit it's an incredible mess, and it shows why no company wanted to invest in it.
- He sexually harassed extras on set. I'm glad this pretentious asshole loses his money.
- It's bad. It's bad and we've been knowing this for months, as it premiered in some festival.
  It's so bad no distributors wanted any piece of the cake (because the necessary costs are astronomical).
  
  AFAIK, the movie received a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes. It is an art film first and foremost, and probably not for the general audience that flocks to the same old, boring formulaic movies a la Marvel & co.
- Not really sad. Coppola is an artist, first and foremost, and he said that he doesn't care whether the film will be financially successful. It is a passion project financed at least partially from his own money, and to be his magnum opus.

The trailer made it seem like the kind of pretentiously boring mess that the director seemed to think had some profound message that I tend to really dislike.
Or put more simply, "Looks like the director set $120 million on fire to win Oscars, not make something entertaining."
- From what I'm hearing, one of the antagonists is a thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch. Sounds like $120 million to pretentiously explain that Fox News is bad to an audience who figured that out two decades ago.
  
  Thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch?
  Bah, 007 did it 27 years ago.
  I really wanted Megalopolis to be good, but I never had high hopes for it. I'll probably still watch it eventually because it has a bunch of actors in it that I love + I'm a sucker for future megacities in movies and games (I'm still not over the fact that they cancelled the Star Wars game that was supposed to take place on the lower levels of Coruscant)

I still don't know if it was overly pretentious garbage or an enlightening allegory of the current state of the world. But watching it was definitely an experience. The cast is great, and I found it visually beautiful and interesting.
- I think its firmly both. There are a lot of great ideas in the movie, and they come across really well when you discuss it. But its also a mess of a film that cares more about allegory and metaphor than narrative.
  
  But its also a mess of a film that cares more about allegory and metaphor than narrative.
  So...a Terrence Malick film?
- I liked it. It was kind of a mess, but it was interesting, thought provoking, and visually very good. As much as there are improvements that could be made or changes to make it more palatable to a wider audience, I’d prefer the weird way it is, and especially movies like this over the next Disney/Corporate Movie Product TM

Promotional campaign brought to you by the same team that worked on Concord.
- No shit, had seen only one weird trailer for this movie before it came out.
- And Dredd with Karl Urban (which is a shame, the movie didn't get the attention it deserved).

It got a lot of controversial press before its release and I can't really recall hearing what the movie is about or it being any good.
- Something something new Rome something something super powers that are useless something something the end

The worst part about this movie is you can't even see the original in search results anymore. Like it never existed.
- Are matey, I'm sure it's out there somewhere, I gottit
  
  I had to add original to get it to come up before 3 pages deep. 😟

"... so you see, Borderlands is actually doing just fine in its theatrical release." -Randy Pitchford

I have no idea what this movie is about. So I watched the trailer.
Star Wars Episode XIII: Avengers of Ben Hur?
I have no idea what this movie is about.
- I also have zero idea what the movie poster is. It looks like Adam Driver is holding a Pizza Hut logo on a stick in front of the world's most generic mess of golden polygons. I guess that's some sort of construction tool?
  
  It's a t square. It's to get straight lines over a distance
  No idea why he's holding it
  
  The poster remembers me of the 1984 Apple commercial, whicht also fits bulding a better future. But that's totally wrong.

Marketing?

"A Fable"
The pretension

The Rifftracks version of this movie is going to be so fire.
- Yes!!!!

Adam Driver?
- The one, the only.

Has he made a good movie in the last 30 years? I loved Dracula but I can't think of anything since then

I was honestly surprised it was out already. I’ve seen a few memes about it the past few months, but my theater hasn’t even run the trailer. It’s also not even in their coming soon listing, which it should be considering it’s supposedly releasing in december here in the Netherlands.
I doubt they’re bothering to run it at all with the reception this got so far. Not unless it manages to capture a ‘so bad you gotta see this train wreck’ cult status between now and december…

So far.

It's definitely worth watching. I can't say I fully understood it on one watch, the time stopping ability is clearly a metaphor, but I'm not settled on what for yet.
It started with Caesar, then passed collaboratively to his wife, then their baby.
Edit I've been thinking about it tonight and I think I have it...
At the start, the Architect can stop time, as an architect, he has the ability to form a lasting, permanent impression on the world around him. His posterity as it were.
Through the film, he loses that level of influence, and similarly loses the ability to stop time.
When he falls in love, he regains a level of influence over his destiny, and so does she. They can stop time together, but not separately.
The film ends with their baby stopping time, as his permanent impact on the world has been transferred to a new generation. Father and mother are frozen in time as the baby moves forward.
Edit Having now seen it a 2nd time on UHD, yes, I think I had it right.
Bonus - the UHD is not avaiable in the US, but it is region free if you import it from the UK. The Blu Ray that comes with it has the bonus features and it's region locked, but that's a solvable problem.

Arrr matey, you need to look in different places

Pluto Nash deserved better tbh

It's a good movie.

This had such a stilted release this is hardly indicitive of quality. Everywhere got this movie at different times and also saw it pop culture for a few months in the run like it was already out.

100 comments