Francis Ford Coppola unveils Megalopolis graphic novel
Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola's $120m passion project, was neither a box office nor a critical success on release last year. Largely funded by the sale of Coppola's own vineyards, the sci-fi epic starring Adam Driver took around $14m at the global box office amid unconvinced reviews and rumours of abnormal on-set behaviour by its director.
A marketing campaign attempted to leverage bad critical notices by flagging that previous works by Coppola now acclaimed as masterpieces – including Apocalypse Now and The Godfather – had been dismissed by critics at the time. But this backfired after it emerged all of the sniffy historical reviews had been fabricated.
The film failed to earn the attention of awards bodies other than the Golden Raspberries for bad movies, which voted the film both worst director and worst supporting actor (for Jon Voight).
Now, a new attempt to ensure the legacy of what may be the 86-year-old director's final film has been announced: a comic book re-interpretation by Chris Ryall, titled Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel.
In a statement on Thursday, Coppola explained that the book would not simply be a re-rendering of his film. 'I was pleased to put the idea of a graphic novel in the competent hands of Chris Ryall with the idea that, although it was inspired by my film Megalopolis, it didn't necessarily have to be limited by it,' he said.
'I hoped the graphic novel would take its own flight, with its own artists and writer so that it would be a sibling of the film, rather than just an echo. That's what I feel Chris, Jacob Phillips and the team at Abrams ComicArts have accomplished. It confirms my feeling that art can never be constrained, but rather always a parallel expression, and part of the bounty we can make available to our patrons, audiences and readers.'
Said Ryall: 'Coppola's storytelling challenged and inspired me at every turn,' adding that he hoped he had 'created something that both honours and expands the world of the original film.'
Although graphic novels are often used as source material for film, in particular for superhero movies, the reverse is considerably more unusual.
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Metro
2 days ago
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13 'cursed' horror films - from tragic deaths to mysterious 'haunted' sets
Horror films are designed to terrify, but sometimes what happens behind the scenes can be so much scarier. For decades, some of the most frightening flicks to hit the big screen have been labelled 'cursed' by fans due to terrible things that happened during filming – and sometimes before it had even begun. The Wizard of Oz, Apocalypse Now, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are all films rumoured to have been cursed due to several dreadful occurrences, from onset mishaps, injuries, and even worse. Due to its chilling nature, horror cinema is automatically associated with gory and haunting happenings, so rumours surround several productions that the terrifying scenes onscreen seeped into real life. To mark Friday the 13th, we look at 13 spine-tingling horror films that gave the cast and crew nightmares even when the cameras stopped rolling. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Last year, Glenn Close's The Deliverance was hit by several strange instances one after the other that had fans scratching their heads and wondering if the set was haunted. The cast and crew of the Netflix hit reportedly held 'prayer circles' after director Lee Daniels' dog died, and actor Mo'Nique was rushed to hospital. 'Mr. Daniels had me doing a scene, okay? And we're outside. It was just, the demon was supposed to be on top of the building, so they kept blowing this… I mean, at one point I'm like, 'Lee, do we have this shit because I can't breathe,'' she told SiriusXM. 'So when I got finished, right, my thyroid was a big… I mean, it was just sick. 'Oh, baby. I was like, 'What kind of s**t is this?' It was a lot of things happening with The Deliverance.' Daniels also revealed his sister had been diagnosed with lung cancer two days after filming the chemotherapy scene with Close. It's just the latest in a long line of horror films that have had stranger than fiction events surrounding the production… The Exorcist is often cited as one of the scariest and greatest horror films ever made, but it was famously dogged with problems and freakish occurrences even before filming began. Shortly before filming began on the 1973 possession horror, the set of Regan and Chris MacNeil's home burned down unexpectedly. Further delays occurred when Linda Blair and Max von Sydow, who played Regan and Father Merrin respectively, lost close family members. Things didn't get much better when filming began, with Linda and Ellen Burstyn, who starred as Chris, both sustaining injuries on set – Linda even fractured her spine during the iconic bed possession scene, an injury that had lifelong implications. It has also been reported that one crew member lost a toe during filming, and another a thumb. Across the production of The Exorcist, nine deaths occurred including that of Jack MacGowran, who played Burke Dennings. Where to watch: BBC iPlayer, NOW TV, and Sky Go Lucifer himself appeared to be trying to stop The Omen in its tracks back in 1976. Two months before filming began, Robert Thorn actor Gregory Peck was struck by tragedy when his son took his own life. Later, in October 1975, Peck was travelling to London to film The Omen when his aeroplane was struck by lightning – and bizarrely, this isn't the only disruption lightning would cause. A few weeks later, producer Mace Neufeld was travelling to set when his aeroplane was also struck by lightning, and screenwriter David Seltzer also experienced the same occurrence. When filming began in Rome, producer Harvey Bernard narrowly avoided being hit by lightning – proving once, and for all, that lightning can strike twice… and more. A stroke of luck saw the crew avoid death when the charter plane they were set to use for an aerial shot was used by a group of businessmen, with the plane crashing and killing everyone on board. The hotel the director, Richard Donner, had been staying in was bombed by the IRA the day after filming, and a zookeeper at the safari park where they filmed the baboon scene was killed by a lion, also the day after those scenes were shot. A serious accident could have occurred on set when dogs used in a scene turned on a stuntman and could not be called off by their handlers. But the most infamous tragedy that happened that is attributed to The Omen is that of Liz Moore's death. She was the assistant and girlfriend of John Richardson, the film's special effects expert. The duo were involved in a car accident in the Netherlands in 1976. While Richardson escaped the wreck largely unscathed, Moore was decapitated. What makes it even more terrifying? The accident happened on Friday the 13th, and when John came to, he noticed a road sign that read 'Ommen, 66.6km'. Where to watch: Disney Plus Film fans have long suspected that 1982 horror film Poltergeist was cursed after supposedly using real, human skeletons in the first film, though this has never been confirmed. Before the third Poltergeist film was released in 1988, four cast members had died, including Heather O'Rourke who played Carol Anne in the original production. O'Rourke was just 12 years old when she died of congenital stenosis of the intestine complicated by septic shock on February 1, 1988, before filming of the third film wrapped. In the same year that the first film was released, Dominique Dunne, who starred as Dana, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her home. She fell into a coma and died five days later on November 4, 1982. Taylor actor Will Sampson died aged 53 from postoperative kidney failure in 1987, and Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley, was murdered by Seth Christopher Tatum in 2009 during a robbery. Oliver Robins, who played Robbie Freeling, was also almost killed while filming a scene where a clown was attacking him, after the mechanical clown malfunctioned and the actor was being choked for real. Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store Actor Brandon Lee – who was the son of Bruce Lee – was fatally shot on the set of The Crow when a prop gun was accidentally loaded with a real bullet, which hit him in the abdomen and caused his death. While that could easily be attributed to a freak accident, what makes it so much more creepy is the fact that he had apparently predicted his own death after having a premonition that he would die suddenly. Brandon is said to have believed his family was cursed after his grandfather had angered a businessman who had put a curse on them. His dad, Bruce Lee, also died at 32 after apparently having a premonition that he would only live half the time of his father, who died at age 64, due to the curse. Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store Twilight Zone: The Movie, released in 1983, suffered a terrible, tragic accident on set when three cast members were killed when filming the Time Out segment. Actor Victor Morrow, who played Bill Connor in the film, and two child actors, who had allegedly been illegally hired, were decapitated, crushed and killed on set when a low-flying helicopter spun out of control. The three were killed while filming a scene featuring heavy explosions when debris from the explosions flew 100 feet in the air and damaged the helicopter's rotor. During the subsequent trial, director John Landis denied culpability for the accident, but admitted that the hiring of the child actors Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, was 'wrong.' Landis, associate producer George Folsey Jr, production manager Dan Allingham, pilot Dorcey Wingo, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were later acquitted on charges of manslaughter Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store The Ring Two, directed by Hideo Nakata, was released in 2005 and had some very strange phenomena take place that suspiciously mimicked the events of the film. Nakata once revealed in an interview that water is used in the film to symbolize someone's evil spirit, and during production, the production office began flooding. The film's set costumer Jeannine Bourdaghs witnessed a strange occurrence on the Universal lot in which a deer, reported to be six feet tall, ran at her. She continued that if she had been 'six feet ahead', the deer would have ploughed into her at almost 100 miles-an-hour. This is particularly spooky as in the film, there is a scene in which Samara (Daveigh Chase) attempts to kill Rachel (Naomi Watts) and Aidan (David Dorfman) with a deer. Where to watch: NOW TV, Sky Go, and Paramount Plus For a film about a cursed doll, you would probably expect some eerie happenings on set – but maybe not this horrific. Both the first Annabelle film and its sequel, Annabelle Comes Home, had some very freaky stuff happen during filming, including light fixtures reportedly falling and the film's Annabelle doll moving on its own. Producer Peter Sarfan told The Hollywood Reporter: 'We shot in this amazing, old apartment building near Koreatown, and we had some funky stuff go down. 'In particular, the first day that the demon was shooting in full makeup, we brought him up in the elevator. He walks out and walks around to the green room to where we're holding the talent, and just as he walks under, the entire glass light fixture falls down on his head. And in the script, the demon kills the janitor in that hallway. It was totally freaky.' The doll itself is based on a 'real' haunted doll investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are fictionalised in these films as well as The Conjuring franchise. In the sequel, Madison Iseman said that when she would enter the Warrens' bedroom set, she would find the Annabelle doll in different positions each time despite no one entering or exiting the room. Star Mckenna Grace also reported experiencing a sudden nosebleed during rehearsals, and that one trailer had a strange power outage that the crew could not find the source of. Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go Rosemary's Baby centres on a pregnant woman who believes an evil cult wants to take her baby to use in their dark rituals. 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Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go The ninth installment of the Amityville series, 2005's The Amityville Horror, focuses on the reported experiences of the Lutz family after they moved into a house in Long Island where Ronald DeFeo Jr murdered six members of his family in 1974, before they moved out just 28 days later after apparently being terrorised by the paranormal. All six of the victims were found face down in their beds with no signs of a struggle, despite police finding that the rifle used to kill them had not been fitted with a sound suppressor and they hadn't been drugged with sedatives before their deaths. None of the family's neighbours reported hearing any gunshots, and those who were awake at the time of the murders say they only heard the family's sheepdog, Shaggy, barking. Ryan Reynolds, who plays George Lutz in the film, reported that he and members of the crew kept waking up at 3.15am every day, which was the time Ronald DeFeo Jr was said to have murdered his parents and four siblings. Before filming began, a dead body of a fisherman also washed up on shore by the film set and the real Kathy Lutz also died during filming. Where to watch: Prime Video and Freevee There is a theme here of possession horror films seemingly being haunted, and that continues with the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The film is loosely based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a German woman whose family believed her to be demonically possessed. When filming The Exorcism of Emily Rose, director Scott Derrickson revealed that stars Jennifer Carpenter and Laura Linney experienced some chilling supernatural activity. Jennifer once claimed that a radio would inexplicably turn on in the middle of the night, which Scott confirmed to be true in an X post. She said it would play one section of the Pearl Jam song Alice over and over again, repeating the lyric 'I'm still alive.' 'I thought about that when it happened, and two or three times when I was going to sleep my radio came on by itself,' Jennifer told Dread Central. 'The only time it scared me was once because it was really loud and it was Pearl Jam's Alive.' She also said that 'Laura's TV came on a couple of times,' with Scott taking to social media to confirm the chilling story. 'This is true. Also, Laura Linney's radio turned on at night 3 times during production,' he said. Life imitates art in The Innkeepers, Ti West's terrifying supernatural film about a haunted hotel on the brink of closure. While filming The House of the Devil the cast and crew stayed at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, experiencing some strange phenomena during their time there. The staff at the inn believed it to be haunted, which inspired Ti to create The Innkeepers. During the production of the second film, people on set claimed that lights would switch on and off for no reason, doors would swing open and shut, and cast members would receive phone calls with no one on the other end of the line. 'Well I'm a skeptic so I don't really buy it. But I've definitely seen doors close by themselves; I've seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange,' the director told IndieWire. 'The one story that is the most intriguing to me — In the film the most haunted room is the Honeymoon Suite. That's where the ghost stuff started in the hotel. The only reason I picked the room that I picked to shoot in, was because it was big enough to do a dolly shot. No more thought went into it other than pure technical reasons. 'So when we're finishing the movie, I find out that the most haunted room in real life, is the room I picked to be the haunted room in the movie. It could be a coincidence. It's weird that it happened that way.' James Wan was rumoured to have shot hit 2010 film Insidious on cursed grounds when a number of terrifying things happened on set – and this continued into the sequel. Insidious: Chapter Two featured a scene set in an abandoned hospital in which the ghost of a patient haunts a nurse after taking their own life. It was filmed at Los Angeles' Linda Vista Community Hospital, a notorious haunted hotspot among the paranormal community. Cast and crew members reported feeling nauseous while in the building and hearing a ringing sound without ever finding the source of the noise. Saw creator James told Bloody Disgusting: 'I've never shot in Linda Vista. It's kind of funny because Leigh [Whannell] and I have always heard so much about it. 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And the guy was like, 'you can never go there again. You came this close to taking something home with you.' 'He asked her if she had seen any blue lights, and she said that she had remembered looking up and seeing these little blue pin lights – she thought it was when you can't see anything and see all these shapes and colors [instead]. And he said, 'that was your aunt and your stepbrother holding them back [the spirits].'' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: It's Friday the 13th so why not binge these 5 truly terrifying TV shows MORE: 'Chilling' horror with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes soars up Amazon Prime chart MORE: Keira Knightley says Pirates of the Caribbean gave her 'terrible actress' label
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Oscar-winner's daughter slammed for calling her wealthy life a 'bore'
Sofia Coppola's daughter Romy Mars is 18 years old, absurdly well-connected, and, according to her new song, totally disillusioned with it all. The daughter of the Oscar-winning director and French musician Thomas Mars, and granddaughter of The Godfather legend Francis Ford Coppola, Romy has just released her debut single A-Lister. The track takes aim at the gilded cage of privilege she's been raised in, but many are divided on whether it's a salient satire or an out-of-touch cry for attention from a spoiled nepo baby. 'My world is heartless, tasteless, nameless, famous,' she sings in the chorus, her voice floating over polished production. The lyrics are blunt: red carpets are hollow, wealth is numbing, and fame is boring. 'Recreate scenes from Titanic on a flying bridge yacht / Just to feel something real,' she sighs, painting a picture of a decadent yet unhappy childhood. Romy is a fully-fledged 'nepo grandbaby,' part of a dynasty that includes cousin Nicolas Cage, aunt Talia Shire, and cousin Gia Coppola. She was scouted by Marc Jacobs at 13, sits front row at fashion weeks, and has been a fixture at galas and film festivals since before she could vote. So it's no surprise that reactions to A-Listers have been mixed. Some praised the track for its self-aware tone, calling Romy 'meta,' 'fresh,' or even 'a Gen Z Lana Del Rey with a trust fund.' One fan wrote under the music video on Youtube: 'So talented so good so fun!!! The women in this family are oh so creative and gifted and you are making your name for yourself, in your own right, with this song :) Go Romy Go!!!' Another agreed: 'I love this kind of nepo baby I'm obsessed!' But others saw it as tone-deaf. 'It's tasteless to call your multitudes of wealth that you didn't earn 'a bore,'' another YouTube comment reads. Another is blunter: 'Talentless, insufferable, overproduced nepo-baby garbage.' Adding to the buzz is the music video, directed by none other than her mother, Sofia Coppola, whose career has long explored themes of isolation, excess, and the invisible weight of being young, beautiful, and trapped. In Lost in Translation, it was Scarlett Johansson's disaffected newlywed. In The Bling Ring, it was teens robbing celebrities to get closer to fame. In A-Listers, it's her own daughter, lip-syncing in designer clothes, escaping to West Coast mansions and party scenes with a blank stare and heavy lashes. The irony is built in, and maybe (hopefully) intentional. It's not the first time Romy has gone viral for poking at the absurdity of her own life. In 2023, she caused an internet frenzy with a now-deleted TikTok video in which she tried to cook pasta while explaining she was grounded for attempting to charter a helicopter on her dad's credit card to visit a friend in Maryland. The clip earned millions of views. 'They don't want me to be a nepotism kid,' she said, referring to her parents' social media ban. More Trending Sofia later told The Hollywood Reporter she was none too pleased by the moment. 'She's funny,' she allowed. 'But people discussing my parenting publicly is not what I would've hoped for.' Still, for all the pushback, there's something undeniably compelling about Romy Mars. Like many young artists raised in rarefied air, she's testing how much of that identity she can claim, subvert, or escape from. Is she self-aware? Spoiled? Satirical? All three? Or just 18, trying to process a life most people couldn't dream of, and probably shouldn't envy? Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Katy Perry nearly plunges headfirst into crowd in terrifying stage blunder MORE: Judge threatens to remove Sean 'Diddy' Combs from trial for attempting to influence jurors MORE: Tom Hanks reacts after daughter reveals childhood of 'violence and deprivation'
