Trailer for ‘Megalopolis’ recalled over fabricated critics’ quotes

AP:

Lionsgate recalled its new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis Wednesday, amid revelations that critics’ quotes were fabricated.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement to The Associated Press. “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.”

The trailer, released earlier Wednesday, included quotes from critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert of other Coppola films that did not actually appear in their reviews. The intent, it seems, was to highlight the critical divisiveness of now-classics like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, leaning into some of the more negative reactions to Megalopolis, the self-financed $120-million epic opening in September.

The trailer attributed a quote to Kael that The Godfather was “diminished by its artsiness”. But Kael loved The Godfather, and this phrase was not used in her March 1972 review of the film for The New Yorker. Ebert also did not write that Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula was “a triumph of style over substance”. Quotes from Rex Reed and Vincent Canby, about Apocalypse Now, did not appear in their reviews either.

Megalopolis has been decades in the making, and it received many mixed reviews upon its première at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It has also come under scrutiny of late for alleged misconduct on set, after videos leaked of Coppola hugging and kissing extras during a club scene. Representatives have not responded to the AP’s requests for comment about the videos.

The film is set to have its North American première at the Toronto International Film Festival next month before hitting theatres on September 27.