On Wednesday morning, Lionsgate dropped a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” offering the first official look at the science fiction drama starring Adam Driver that’s said to have “polarized critics” after its May 16 premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
In the sneak peek at the film — due to hit theaters in the United States on September 27 — a misguided marketing team made an apparent attempt to riff on the mixed buzz, using several quotes from famous film critics that were later revealed to be fraudulent — leading to the trailer being pulled down hours after it went up.
In a statement from a Lionsgate spokesperson provided to Variety, they write, “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis.’ 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.”
As the outlet points out, the trailer “aimed to position Coppola’s latest film as a work of art that would withstand the test of time,” including fake quotes from critics panning several of his most famous films like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but none of the quotes used — such as one from Roger Ebert — could be located in their actual reviews.
This is not the first controversy to surround the release of “Megalopolis.” In July, Coppola was accused of kissing female extras on set without their consent, with The Guardian reporting on a video from the set that emerged as proof over the summer.