Coppola's 'Megalopolis' plays to near-empty theaters

There's no kinder way to say it: Francis Ford Coppola's “Megalopolis” is dead on weekend arrivals.

Mr. Coppola, 85, spent decades in the fable of the avant-garde, eventually selling parts of his wine business to raise the necessary funds — about $120 million in production costs and another $20 million or so in marketing and distribution costs. But moviegoers rejected the film: Thursday night through Sunday ticket sales will be roughly $4 million in North America, according to analysts, slightly below worst-case pre-release estimates.

“Megalopolis” played in nearly 2,000 theaters in the United States and Canada. As of Saturday evening, it was on pace to finish sixth in the weekend box office derby, even behind “Devaara Part 1,” a poorly reviewed, three-hour, Telugu-language action drama that was available in about 1,000 theaters.

“Megalopolis” is about a brilliant architect (played by Adam Driver) who wants a society to pull itself out of the gutter. Ticket buyers gave the film a D-plus grade in the CinemaScore exit poll. It's rare for a big budget movie from a big director to get anything less than a B-minus.

Adam Fogelson, a top movie executive at Lionsgate, which distributed “Megalopolis,” said the company was “proud to partner” with Mr. Coppola to give the film “the wide theatrical release it deserves.”

“Like all true art, it will be seen and judged by moviegoers over time,” Mr. Fogelson added.

A spokesman for Mr. Coppola declined to comment.

In the 1980s, when Mr. Coppola began making the first film, “Megalopolis” was a chance in theaters. It was a time in Hollywood when ambitious films could be eased into a few theaters and allowed to build an audience for months, adding more screens week by week and sometimes continuing for a year or more. . Hollywood could afford to take it a little slower because movies dominated leisure time: not only was there no Internet, but cable TV and video games were still in their relative infancy.

Today, movies are usually booked into as many theaters as possible as soon as possible, especially if the reviews are poor. Studios use this distribution strategy to capitalize on expensive marketing campaigns, intended to open a narrow window of consumer interest. If the public doesn't materialize immediately, theater chains redirect screens to other movies. (Friday, Warner Bros.' sequel “Joker: Folly a Deux” arrives in more than 4,000 theaters.)

“Megalopolis” almost didn't make it into the theater. In the spring, when Mr. Coppola began shopping for a distributor, every major studio turned him down. Some executives from these studios praised the movie for its artistic risk. But no one expected much for it in theatres. (Eventually, Lionsgate agreed to distribute the film for a fee.) Increasingly, original films are sent directly to streaming services — if they ever get made. Theaters are booming for remakes and sequels.

“Like it or not, movie theaters aren't where these audiences get this type of entertainment anymore,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said in an email

Mr. Coppola is the second Hollywood legend in three months to learn this lesson the hard way. Over the summer, Kevin Costner's expensive “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” flatlined at the box office. Plans to release the second chapter in theaters have been cancelled.

In Hollywood, where backbiting and schadenfreude run rampant, some agents and publicists privately refer to “megalopolis” as “mega.”flopolis” for the month. The film appeared to be a snakebite from the start, suffering from offscreen problems that included a mid-production crew firing, a defamation suit and a promotional trailer.

But most of the film industry was surprised by the disappointing weekend turnout. Many people in leadership positions in Hollywood were inspired to pursue cinema as a career because of Mr. Coppola's masterpieces of the 1970s, including “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.” Seeing one of their heroes from the crash and burn of that era is a painful reminder of how damaged the movie business has become.

For the weekend, the No. 1 movie in North America was “The Wild Robot” (Universal/DreamWorks Animation), which was on pace to collect $35 million in its first three days in theaters. “The Wild Robot” cost $78 million to make. It received rave reviews.

“Beetlejuice” (Warner Bros.) was second, taking in about $16 million, for a four-week domestic total of roughly $250 million. “Transformers One” (Paramount) was third, collecting an estimated $9 million, for a two-week domestic total of $40 million.