Megalopolis, the Roman fable retold as a modern American sci-fi written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Adam Driver, has bombed in its box office debut.
As reported by Variety, Megalopolis debuted to a measly $4 million at the U.S. box office. This is a fraction of the biggest films of the year, as Deadpool & Wolverine scored $211 million domestically and Inside Out 2 scored $155 million. Even the widely panned remake of The Crow remake scored more at $4.6 million, as did the disastrous Borderlands movie, which pulled in just $8.8 million in the U.S. and Canada in its opening weekend.
The number is even more stark next to the $120 million budget of Megalopolis and, while the film still has several weeks left in theatres, it will almost definitely come in tens of millions under.
"The movie is an ambitious, personal vision. Sometimes a film like this beats the odds and makes a lot of money," analyst David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research told Variety. "This one is not working. The result is going to be a big tax write-off."
It came in sixth place overall, behind The Wild Robot in first at $35, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in second at $16 million, Transformers One in third at $9.3 million, Indiana Telugu-language action film Devara: Part 1 in fourth at $6.7 million, and Speak No Evil in fifth at $4.3 million.
Last month, a Megalopolis' trailer was pulled offline after review quotes were discovered to be fake. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year to mixed reviews, although we gave it a 9/10, with Siddhant Adlakha writing: "Megalopolis is, for better and worse, a profoundly personal vision, whose wordy metaphors eventually give way to jaw-dropping transformations."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
