For those who don’t know, Coppola was the founder of American Zoetrope and the director of the Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now & the Conversation. He also wrote Patton, which came out when he was 31 and won the Oscar for best screenplay.
He’s also since started the Coppola wine brand, which largely due to his name in some attachment to Italian American culture, it’s one of the largest wine companies in the US, where he’s made over 100 million off that.
Which makes him self financing his new movie really strange, because he said no major studio would touch it.
Interesting thing about this is there’s a lesson in life.
First up, some history with Coppola and The Godfather.
Coppola did a movie called Finian’s Rainbow, which was based on a huge musical in the 40s/50s of the same name, in 1968.
He directed it and despite a big name going for it, the movie was a critically mediocre movie, with it managing to make 11 million on a budget of 3m, which was less than what the studio wanted.
He was also partners with George Lucas at the time, who’d two years later direct THX 1138, which bombed horribly.
The company they started together was ready to flop and he only did the Godfather to avoid bankruptcy. Hated working with studios afree Finian and him doing the Godfather was a saving grace.
He even said in interviews, he felt the only reason he was even asked to do the role was they wanted an Italian director.
The Godfather while obviously being a success was also a bit of a process for Coppola.
The studio wanted Robert Redford as Michael Corleone.
They didn’t want Marlon Brando as The Godfather.
They wanted it 20 minutes shorter.
It was a hell process, where he threatened to quit half a dozen times.
It worked though and he got the freedom to do his next film, with Apocalypse Now.
That was also a studio disaster, where they threatened to shut the movie down over recuts and high costs. He was also forced to edit out about half an hour of the movie and years later did a re-release, which some people like and others hate.
Again, a huge success, but hell to make it.
The issue for Coppola came after that point.
His works include.
The Outsiders
Cult film, but underperformed financially and got bad reviews.
Rumble Fish
Budget of 10 million, box office of 3 million.
The Cotton Club
Lost 25 million
Tucker: The man and his dream
Lost 6 million
New York Stories
Lost 5 million
The Godfather 3
Made money, but was just stupid fan fiction.
The Rain Maker
Broke even, box office to budget, meaning it lost money.
In the 15 years after 1980, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was his only movie to make any noticeable return.
When Rain Maker flopped, he moved away from movies to do wine and returned a decade later doing indie films, wit’s both bad reviews, low budgets and low returns.
Youth Without Youth
Tetro
Twist
All bombed
The point of writing all this.
Francis Ford Coppola is like an icon of mine.
But as a director, he’s not really the person any studio will fund.
His successes pissed off the people he worked with.
His flops show he’s not a reliable name for money.
He also seems fixated on being artsy for the sake of it.
Also, the idea for this new movie is a little off.
Megalopolis
An idea he’s had for 40-50 years, but the concept doesn’t seem marketable enough to justify 120 million from a studio.
This is sort of a case where a lot of artist, entrepreneurs and so on have success, but when they finally have it do projects a little too into themselves.
I really hope this works and in his early 80s, he can make a final win happen, but sort of doubting it.