Lionsgate has pulled the trailer for the forthcoming Francis Ford Coppola film “Megalopolis” after claims that some quotes from movie critics included in the preview were fabricated.
The film, a passion project for Coopola, stars Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Giancarlo Esposito and Grace VanderWaal.
It “was very loosely inspired by [Coppola’s] reading about the Catilinarian Conspiracy which took place in 63 BC.”
“At the heart of the event was a popular Roman aristocrat, Lucius Sergius Catiline, who was attempting to overthrow the Roman Republic,” according to a press release for the movie. “Had Catiline’s coup succeeded, he would have ousted the reigning upper class and released himself and the lower classes from debt.”
The famed director self-financed the sci-fi film, which has already sparked debate among critics.
Vulture was first to raise questions about whether quotes from critics slamming Coppola’s past films like “The Godfather” - included in the first trailer for “Megalopolis” - were legit or not. The publication pointed out that marketing campaigns long have used divisive quotes from critics about what goes on to become a beloved film to show how very wrong said critics can be.
“At first, this new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s much-anticipated, decades-in-the-making ‘Megalopolis’ seemed to be taking a turbo-loaded approach to that latter strategy, going back in time to give us examples of critics hating on Coppola’s earlier masterpieces,” New York Magazine and Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri wrote. “And not just any critics: These are quotes from people like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, two of the greatest names in film criticism. Except that it looks like they might not have said any of this.”
Lionsgate, the studio behind the film, has since pulled that trailer and issued an apology.
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” a spokesperson for Lionsgate said in a statement to CNN. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”