Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Plays to Near-Empty Theaters

[Leo Enticknap]

In the interest of full disclosure, VERTIGO always does very well here in San Francisco, since a large part of the movie was filmed on location here...

Similar to when I worked at the Egyptian, Chinatown, Double Indemnity, and Pulp Fiction were guaranteed to sell out, with a lot of the audience being there mainly to see what their home or workplace looked like one, two, or three generations ago. The merits of the movies themselves weren't really what was motivating people. Or, as a somewhat more far flung example, I retain a soft spot for Get Carter, because I once did a commute for a few years that took me past the infamous (and now demolished) parking structure from which Michael Caine topples Bryan Mosley. Using distinctive locations for iconic scenes are a surefire way to turn your movie into a classic.

[Scotty Wright]

I work at an IMAX, and Megalopolis way overperformed for us. We screenshared it with Wild Robot, which had twice as many shows but Megalopolis still had more tix sold.

[Bobby Henderson]

Bobby, is that on the same screen? I thought doing that was a huge no-no.

Yep. It's doubled up on the IMAX screen. I've seen it done before, particularly when the two movies are animated movies to show to families during the day and R-rated fare to run in the evening. Joker: Folie a Deux will have the IMAX house all to itself starting on Friday.

[Randy Stankey]

Oh? Do you mean something like playing "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" during matinee hours and "Striptease" in the same auditorium during the evening? Demi Moore plays a part in both movies so it should be all right. Shouldn't it?

Or, maybe, playing "Hercules" during the day and "American Pie" during the evening. Nothing can go wrong with that one. Can it?
It can't...unless...the fuckwit booth manager starts the show during a Saturday afternoon matinee of "Hercules" and walks away from the projector without checking.

Back in the day, we used to put a hockey puck, painted blaze orange, in the center of the movie that SHOULDN'T play so that, in order to run that film, you had to take the hockey puck out.

Is there a way to put in some kind of backstop like that on a digital server? Maybe make the program put up a dialogue box that asks, "Do you really want to play this movie?"
I don't know. Just thinking...

[Frank Cox]

I think most theatres (not mine though) use scheduled showtimes where the movie just starts itself automatically.

[Martin McCaffery]

For some reason, it hasn't show up in Montgomery, AL. It's in Birmingham, so maybe Lionsgate is platforming it, though 1,800+ seems like a wide release to me. Everything here is AMC, and they are showing it in Birmingham, so not as if they are ignoring it.
We'll see what happens next week

[Mike Blakesley]

Taste is pretty relative, we are talking about art after all (sometimes with a capitol A sometimes not), especially when folks are trying to do "serious cinema". I don't know if I would like Megalopolis yet.

The reviews are pretty mixed. We saw it at the RMNATO convention. I was sitting with a group of six people. The most positive comment I could get out of the group was "well, that was strange." I don't think anyone would argue with that statement, whether they liked the movie or not!

[Marcel Birgelen]

After just having seen "Joker 2", this movie at least doesn't contend for the worst movie of the year title for me.

I'm not sure if I'd call Megalopolis "serious cinema", I'd rather call it "Pretentious Cinema". I guess part of the trick of making a great movie is trying not taking yourself too serious. Ironically, that's probably why "Joker 2" is also an unmitigated mess. Maybe they should've taken a cue from The Joker's tagline?

[Paul H. Rayton]

Marcel almost took the words out of my mouth ... don't get too excited about a boxoffice bonanza out of "Joker 2", at least based on the early reviews from key critics. The fact that it's in (oooooh! IMAX!) will help "Joker 2" in the first weekend, but that one is sure sounding like another stinker. It and "Megalopolis" can be in contention for one of the "Razzie" awards, i.e. "bad movie of the year".

[Mike Blakesley]

Yeah, we are playing Joker 2 now...unfortunately. This is one of those movies where I'm surprised studio suits didn't look at the dailies and go "Hey guys? Uhhh, no."

[Bobby Henderson]

By the time the movie has gone into production, the sets are built, actors are dressed up in their costumes, etc a bunch of the money has already been spent.