‘Megalopolis’ grew more relevant over the decades Coppola worked on it: Esposito

TORONTO — Giancarlo Esposito first read the script of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” more than two decades ago, and he says it somehow feels more relevant now.

The actor, who plays corrupt prosecutor-turned-mayor Francis Cicero in Coppola’s self-funded $120-million passion project, says that when he returned to the project decades later he marvelled that something so long in the making could remain so current.

“I wonder, does Francis have a crystal ball? How did he do that?” Esposito says during a round of interviews at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film, a sprawling sci-fi fable about a mercurial architect’s push to save his failing city, pits a visionary against the establishment — represented by Esposito — while a well-funded populist conspires to take over.

The film is inspired by the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 B.C., in which the Roman aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catiline planned to take over government and forgive all debt — including his own — until Roman Consul Marcus Tullius Cicero revealed the plot and charged him with treason, upholding the status quo.

Coppola’s film is set in a futuristic New York City known as New Rome, with the director reimagining that original story’s villain, Catiline, as his hero: Cesar Catilina, portrayed by Adam Driver.

Had the Catiline Conspiracy ended differently, Coppola seems to ask in the film, might the Roman empire have survived?

Perhaps, Esposito says, the key to Coppola’s seeming prescience is that he looked backwards, noting the tragedy seemed to play out over and over again among modern-day U.S. politics.

“I think about the cyclical nature of what we go through and how history repeats itself,” says Esposito.

Initially, he looked to David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City, for inspiration.

Esposito says that like Mayor Cicero, Dinkins was largely unsuccessful in accomplishing his goals during his term, from 1990 to 1993.

“As we moved throughout the process of getting closer to making the film, then another person, a newly elected Eric Adams, became someone to look at,” Esposito says.

“Not only in the way he handled himself, but being an ex-police commissioner, someone who was in enforcement, also played a part in my thinking about how do we control the masses?”

“Megalopolis” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France earlier this year to wildly mixed reviews. Some panned the project as a bloated and overly complex mess, while others praised its ingenuity and willingness to explore complex themes.

Esposito says he’s happy with the film’s reception at the European festival, but he’s more excited for a North American audience to see it. The film screened Monday at TIFF and was scheduled for another screening Tuesday. It’s set for release in Canada on Sept. 27.

“This is one of the rounds that really counts,” he says.

“Megalopolis” is, he says, “a film that reflects not only a worldly message, but also a North American message in many ways.”

The Toronto International Film Festival runs through Sunday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press