Legendary Hollywood director, Francis Ford Coppola, blamed major studios for the diminishing success of his films in recent years.
Coppola shared his perspective on the systems in place at major motion studios during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for “Megalopolis,” a film he financed entirely on his own. “I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt,” he said, according to Variety. “And the job is not so much to make good movies, the job is to make sure they pay their debt obligations.”
TAORMINA, ITALY – JUNE 26: Director Francis Ford Coppola is seen on stage during the Taormina Film Fest 2022 Opening Ceremony on June 26, 2022 in Taormina, Italy. (Photo by Daniele Venturelli/Daniele Venturelli / Getty Images)
Coppola went on to suggest this is not a successful framework for the film industry and suggested that if studios maintain this position when creating new movies, they might not be around much longer.
“Obviously, new companies like Amazon and Apple and Microsoft, they have plenty of money, so it might be that the studios we knew for so long, some wonderful ones, are not to be here in the future anymore,” he told Variety.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 22: Francis Ford Coppola attends the “The Godfather” 50th Anniversary Celebration at Paramount Theatre on February 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/WireImage)
LYON, FRANCE – OCTOBER 19: Francis Ford Coppola shoots the remake of Louis Lumiere’s 1st French short black-and-white silent documentary film ‘La Sortie de l’Usine’ during the 11th Film Festival Lumiere on October 19, 2019 in Lyon, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Coppola’s conversation about his dwindling faith in studios was evident in his devotion to self-funding his own work. He as been trying to make “Megalopolis” for decades, and wound up investing $120 million of his own personal finances to produce the film, according to Variety. Coppola tapped into money earned from his wine empire to support the making of his movie. (RELATED: Disney CEO Bob Iger Says Company Will Cut Marvel Movie Output Over Quality Concerns: REPORT)
US film director Francis Ford Coppola attends the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 27, 2022. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
“Megalopolis” is the first film the 85-year-old director has made since releasing “Twixt,” in 2011. Stars of the film include Grace VanderWaal, Laurence Fishburne, D.B. Sweeney, Talia Shire, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Kathryn Hunter and Shia LaBeouf.
