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.
