Francis Ford Coppola bemoans lack of prep time on ‘Megalopolis’: “I rehearsed with the understudy”

• Read More: ‘Megalopolis’ review: as mad and memorable as everyone is saying

The film stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, an architect-scientist who wants to improve a fictional version of New York City called New Rome. Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Labeouf, and Giancarlo Esposito, among others also star.

But during filming, the likes of Driver were absent from the start due to commitments on other projects.

“I had this extraordinary cast, but a lot of them couldn’t be there from the very beginning, so I couldn’t rehearse with them,” Coppola told IndieWire. “I gave every actor an understudy, and if an actor couldn’t be there I rehearsed with the understudy.”

Despite having to resort to this method of working, Coppola did say by having to use an understudy, “there was a lot of good stuff that came from that that benefitted the movie.”

Megalopolis, which was self-financed by Coppola and took decades to make, received a mixed reaction at its Cannes Film Festival premiere in May.

The film has also received a mixed reaction from critics, sitting on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 52 per cent. Many have commented on the movie’s “bizarreness”, with The Guardian describing it as “bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow”.

In a two-star review, NME wrote: “The trouble is – and maybe this was also part of the point, somehow – the whole piece is so uneven, that at times it’s akin to watching a toddler being given free rein as an interior decorator. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you always should.”

“All this being said, Coppola deserves a great deal of credit for ploughing $100million of his own money into making his film, his way. Whether Megalopolis is a critical or commercial success remains to be seen but it’s strange enough to surely have a long life as a cult film.”

As a result Coppola recently shared a new trailer for the film featuring negative reviews on his past movies such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It is due for release in cinemas on September 27.