Megalopolis Is Making The Wrong Kind Of History

Megalopolis earned only $4 million in its opening weekend, which places it behind Borderlands, Madam Web, and Kevin Costner’s Horizon for the year, all three of which were, at one point, in contention for 2024’s worst release. Coppola has blown away the competition and is now being discussed alongside some of the greatest failures in history: Mars Needs Moms, John Carter, Green Lantern, and Gods of Egypt, among several offers, but it gets even worse.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash, the sci-fi comedy that destroyed Eddie Murphy’s career for years, even unadjusted for inflation, made more money, with $7 million. Another career-destroying film, Gigli, which nearly took down Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, made $7.3 million, again, unadjusted for inflation. That’s how amazing the failure of Megalopolis is; it needs to earn 50 percent of its opening weekend gross to match some of the worst movies ever made.

The bizarre film, which may be the last one Francis Ford Coppola ever makes, is being celebrated on social media as an event film, one of those “so bad it’s good” experiences, similar to what happened with Morbius. There are reports on social media of Megalopolis playing in nearly empty theaters, and after only a few days, a few chains are already decreasing the number of showtimes. We might be seeing the single greatest box office bomb of this century happening right before our eyes.

Lionsgate handled distribution to theaters, and the studio is having a no-good, very bad year, with back-to-back-to-back flops, from Borderlands and The Crow to Megalopolis. The unique production of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, though, means that Lionsgate won’t be losing a lot of money, if any at all, because the director had to self-finance production with his own money, and even then, it took months to find anyone that would handle distribution.

Don’t feel too bad for Coppola, though; he sold one of his wineries to pay for the production, and he won’t be destitute any time soon.

Megalopolis centers on the feud between Cesar (Adam Driver) and Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), as each man has a different vision of the future. Cesar wants to build for the future, but Cicero is conservative and likes things the way they are. There are also falling satellites, political scandals, and, oddly, a scene with Jon Voight as Crassus wielding a crossbow destined to be the next big social media meme.

No one thought Megalopolis would be a blockbuster, and it was expected to underperform following the poor initial showings on the festival circuit, but coming in behind Gigli is achieving legendary flop status. Francis Ford Coppola is already talking about another film, allegedly a musical this time, so he may not be ending his career with one of the worst films of all time. That said, there’s another musical, Joker 2, coming soon that, according to early buzz, might challenge for the title of the Worst Box Office Performance of 2024.