Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis must be fine, because Giancarlo Esposito has joined the cast

Giancarlo Esposito works a lot, but surely he wouldn't sign on for a film that was total chaos

By Sam Barsanti | January 24, 2023 | 1:10am

Aux News Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis must be fine, because Giancarlo Esposito has joined the cast

Giancarlo Esposito Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association

Earlier this month, insiders claimed that production on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis—the filmmaker’s ultimate dream project and one that he’s paying for with his own money—had essentially descended into complete chaos. The director himself later denied that anything was going wrong, saying that his haters should “just wait and see” and that his film (because of it’s “great” cast) was going to end up being “beautiful.”

Now we have another addition to that great cast, with Deadline saying that Giancarlo Esposito is heading to Megalopolis. Esposito can currently be seen in every TV show, including Netflix’s format-twisting Kaleidoscope and the recently completed Better Call Saul, and he’s also going to appear in more episodes of The Mandalorian and in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix spin-off of The Gentlemen.

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We don’t know who he’s playing in Megalopolis, but Coppola really wasn’t kidding about that great cast: Even before Esposito came on board, the film already had Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Chloe Fineman, Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, and Jason Schwartzman. Oh, and… Jon Voight and Shia LaBeouf will also be there.

Some kind of alternate-history sci-fi epic, Megalopolis reconfigures modern New York City as an extension of the Roman empire, with various families and political factions vying for control of the city. Its budget is apparently just below $100 million, and Coppola insists that everything with the production is going swimmingly (Adam Driver also backed him up on that when the stories came out, so, for all we know, things really are going fine). Megalopolis is supposed to wrap filming this spring, and Coppola has previously teased some plan to release it on the same day in theaters all over the world.