Director Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Megalopolis has always been a difficult sell. It is a self-funded utopian film that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film received mixed reviews and struggled to find distribution in the United States.
When it finally found distribution, many people believed that mainstream audiences would find it too strange for a fun night out.
This weekend, those worries became real as the film opened in around 1,800 locations in the U.S., thanks to Lionsgate. It is not only doing poorly at the box office but also getting a very low D+ CinemaScore from viewers.
In some circles, this low score might be seen as a badge of honor. It could invite curious people to see the film and experience its strangeness. However, curiosity is not enough to bring in audiences right now. Megalopolis made only about $2 million on its opening day.
Half of this amount came from preview screenings held on Wednesday and Thursday. It is expected to earn less than $5 million this weekend. This result is disappointing, especially since the film cost about $120 million to make.
Coppola raised the money for the film himself, partly by selling a share of his wine business. Megalopolis has been a passion project for him.
He became famous in the 1970s during the New Hollywood wave. Coppola is best known for directing classic films like The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation.
Still from the movie (Lionsgate Films)
His last movie was Twixt, released in 2011. Megalopolis stars Adam Driver and features a diverse cast. It is set in a made-up modern United States and follows a conflict between an idealistic architect and a corrupt politician.
The movie’s D+ CinemaScore is the same as the recent video game adaptation Borderlands. That film also performed poorly, earning about $32 million worldwide against a budget of over $100 million.
Other films that received similar CinemaScores include Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and Ari Aster’s Hereditary. This shows that Megalopolis is in the company of other impressive films made by talented filmmakers.
Currently, Megalopolis has a “rotten” 49% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience rating is similarly low at 41%. In his review, Chase Hutchinson compared the film to “a Rorschach test where everything is a stretch and nothing has any substance to it.”
The film also stars Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Grace VanderWaal, Kathryn Hunter, Talia Shire, Dustin Hoffman, D.B. Sweeney, and Giancarlo Esposito.
Pony Canyon released a new video on Saturday for the full anime adaptation of Sae Okamoto’s Mecha-Ude project. The video includes English subtitles that can be turned on, and it introduces the main characters of the show.
The anime will begin airing on October 3. Crunchyroll will stream the series starting on October 3 worldwide, except for Asia and South Asia. In Asia, it will stream on Aniplus in Korea; on Aniplus VOD in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; and on bilibili and Aniplus TV in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Crunchyroll describes the story:
Hikaru’s ordinary middle school life takes an exciting turn when he meets Alma, an alien creature resembling a mechanical limb called Mecha-Ude. Alma is part of a rare species being hunted by a dark group seeking one with immense power. Together with the resistance group ARMS, Hikaru and Alma go on a dangerous mission to save the Mecha-Ude.
Mecha-Ude Anime (Credits: TriF/Mecha-Ude Production Committee)
Mecha-Ude: From Crowdfunding Success to Full Anime Series with Top Creators and Music by Hiroyuki Sawano
Sae Okamoto is the original creator and director of the anime, working under the name Okamoto at Fukuoka-based TriF Studio. Yasuhiro Nakanishi from TriF is in charge of the series scripts, while Terumi Nishii and Yoko Uchida designed the characters. Nurikabe created the design and concept for Mecha-Ude.
The music is composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, Kohta Yamamoto, and DAIKI from AWSM. Shota Kawamura is the 3DCG director, and Takeshi Takadera is the sound director.
Hiroshi Matsuyama from CyberConnect2 serves as the general supervisor, Shūichi Asō from TriF Studio is the animation producer, and Tetsuya Kinoshita from Pony Canyon is the producer.
Mecha-Ude Anime (Credits: TriF/Mecha-Ude Production Committee)
Setsuko of Kuhaku Gokko performs the opening theme song “VORTEX” and the ending theme song “karma.” Hiroyuki Sawano composed, arranged, and produced both songs.
In May 2019, the production team released a pilot anime video, followed by an English dub. The opening theme “Ambivalent” was performed by Eve, and AZLiGHTZ performed the ending theme “Alone.”
The original Mecha-Ude Kickstarter campaign in 2016 raised $67,918. A Japanese crowdfunding campaign on Campfire raised 4,849,500 yen (about $44,000) before ending in March 2018.
Mecha-Ude Anime (Credits: TriF/Mecha-Ude Production Committee)
In September 2022, Pony Canyon announced that the project would become a full anime series. The first episode premiered at the Anime Expo in July 2023.
In September 2022, Yoshino Koyoka (Aria the Scarlet Ammo) began a manga adaptation on the LINE Manga and ebookjapan platforms. In July 2023, Azuki started releasing the manga in English under the title Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms.
