Francis Ford Coppola characterizes Megalopolis chaos reports as "some disagreements"

According to Francis Ford Coppola, the many, many reports of "chaos" on the set of Megalopolis—especially within a lengthy article published by The Guardian this past May—have been greatly exaggerated. "There were some disagreements that had to do with the studio I was shooting at in Atlanta. 'You have an art department with five art directors. I want to cut one of them.' 'Well, if you cut one, we’ll all resign.' I did, and they did," the director told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. "It’s similar to what has happened at different times in my career, where basically it was over what the money was being spent on. But I did wrap on schedule, which I had to do because if I had been going over schedule, I would’ve been doomed."

While the budgetary issues were cited as a problem in many articles about the production of this decades-in-the-making film, they haven't been the biggest blight on its release in recent months. The same Guardian article also alleged that Coppola had kissed female extras non-consensually on set, the truth of which became the center of a major media back-and-forth earlier this summer. Here's what Coppola has to say about it:

You’re talking about the Guardian piece, which is totally untrue. If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were—and I honestly don’t know who the sources were—it’s the same people who provided quotes for that Hollywood Reporter piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that. And the truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt. The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.

It’s all so ridiculous. Look at the timing of that article. It’s right before we’re about to premiere the film at Cannes. They’re just trying to damage the picture.

It's unclear what makes Coppola so sure that the two outlets were speaking to the same people, considering the fact that both relied on anonymous sources and the director, by his own admission, doesn't actually know who they are. Still, he seems confident that it's all a bunch of hearsay because he pushed the limits of filmmaking a bit too far. "There’s a prevailing tendency in Hollywood to say, if you follow our rules, you’ll have a better chance of a success. 'Well, what about Francis? He doesn’t follow your rules.' 'Well, look, what’s going to happen to him, he’s going to have a failure,'" he suggested. "I’m trying to do something different here. Film is change. I mean, the movies that your grandchildren are going to make are going to be nothing like what we see now."

What does "something different" mean to Coppola? Among other things, "what I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers," he said. "The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought."

"Interesting" is certainly a word. Still, there are some genuinely neat tidbits about the genesis of the film—which comes to theaters September 27, AI-generated trailer or not—in the full interview. James Gandolfini apparently had "a lot of great suggestions" when he read a draft of the script in 2001, for example. (The late actor originally read for the part of the mayor, which eventually went to Giancarlo Esposito.) You can read the full Rolling Stone piece here.