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Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

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Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#71

Post by randomsilence »

We could as well skip the movie and start the debate right away.

>What he dreams about, he said, is creating something like It's a Wonderful Life—a movie everyone goes to see, once a year, forever. “On New Year's, instead of talking about the fact that you're going to give up carbohydrates, I'd like this one question to be discussed, which is: Is the society we live in the only one available to us? And discuss it.”

>>One is her father who raised her, who taught her Latin on his lap and is devoted to a much more classical view of society, the Marcus Aurelius kind of view. The other one, who is the lover, is the enemy of the father but is dedicated to a much more progressive ‘Let's leap into the future, let's leap over all of this garbage that has contaminated humanity for 10,000 years. Let's find what we really are, which are an enlightened, friendly, joyous species.’

Is this a "French Connection" situation and it takes FF Coppola's soul to make it a tradition? HN already has all the infrastructure to establish the tradition of discussing this question. Is this a tradition worth establishing? And if so, what does it take besides making a submission?

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#73

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

pdpi wrote: post #52
scop wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with…

Every era is an era of horrible films. That’s Sturgeon’s law for you. Looking at the 2010s as a whole, we got to watch some amazing films. We got great hard sci-fi like Gravity, Arrival, Ex Machina. The coming of age genre saw entries like Ladybird, Eighth Grade and Booksmart. Animation reached new heights with films like Inside Out, Spider-Man into the Spiderverse, and Kubo and the Two Strings. We got comedies like…

Gravity is not hard sci-fi. It looks amazing in 3D but it violates the laws of physics in every way possible.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#74

Post by drexlspivey »

ainiriand wrote: post #54
firasd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2017 is when I first noticed this... Ghost in the Shell, Valerian, Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner 2049 made their money back, it is just it wasn't a big success.

The movie budgets quoted in the various sites do not include the marketing budget. The rule of thumb is to double the quoted budget and compare with worldwide gross.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#75

Post by philistine »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #73
pdpi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every era is an era of horrible films. That’s Sturgeon’s law for you. Looking at the 2010s as a whole, we got to watch some amazing films. We got great hard sci-fi like Gravity, Arrival, Ex Machina. The coming of age genre saw entries like Ladybird, Eighth Grade and Booksmart. Animation reached new heights with films like Inside Out, Spider-Man into the Spiderverse, and Kubo and the Two Strings. We got comedies like…

Gravity is not hard sci-fi. It looks amazing in 3D but it violates the laws of physics in every way possible.

Yeah. Wall-E had more realistic use of a fire extinguisher to move in space.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#76

Post by richardfey »

scop wrote: post #11
avl999 wrote: post #5

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).

I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with…

> especially in the current era of horrible movies

Isn't this always the case? Have we ever had an era when people thought "glad to be in the current era of great movies"?

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#77

Post by achairapart »

justin66 wrote: post #57
avl999 wrote: post #5

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).

> I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Coppola had to mortgage everything to do Apocalypse Now, and that was following the very successful Godfather II. This is probably why he's so confident about making a big bet on himself again while doing an "off the wall" film. It worked out well previously. ( Megalopolis honestly sounds lik…

This.

There is a great documentary about the troubled production of Apocalypse Now: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse[0]

After watching this, that 100M bet will look like a trifle.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmake...

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#78

Post by Icko »

pdpi wrote: post #52
scop wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with…

Every era is an era of horrible films. That’s Sturgeon’s law for you. Looking at the 2010s as a whole, we got to watch some amazing films. We got great hard sci-fi like Gravity, Arrival, Ex Machina. The coming of age genre saw entries like Ladybird, Eighth Grade and Booksmart. Animation reached new heights with films like Inside Out, Spider-Man into the Spiderverse, and Kubo and the Two Strings. We got comedies like…

Not to understate what Disney did, but I feel like most of their characters don't have much depth.

I recently rewatched 12 angry men, and was surprised at how quickly and efficiently they introduced 12 characters. Off-hand remark by one character, an expression by another, the way they stood and moved around; in around 5 seconds you knew the characters without even knowing their names.

Contrast to Marvel's characters, which have hours of development each, yet don't really feel alive. All of them have tragic backstory, all of them are heroic in the same way, most of the male characters are snarky/sarcastic/have big egos.

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#79

Post by richardfey »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #41
bigmattystyles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say that about Godfather 3, I always wonder if it’s just a thing to say because he put his own daughter in a lead role. Like the critics, I liked it. Not nearly as much as II or I but still. It is a nineties movie though, it’s even different media wise, less grainy. Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. For me Garc…

> Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. While I'll agree Sofia is a much better director than actress (she’s a truly outstanding writer and director) and that Ryder would have been better (Coppola later did work with her on Bram Stoker's Dracula), I’m not going to be mad at him casting his daughter or even blaming it on nepotism…

There have probably been better character analysis done, but I think Sofia did not have the time to "soak in" GF1 and GF2 to give her character any specific nuance that we could love. It's difficult to separate "blandness" and purity in her rendering of the daughter of the godfather, but consider also this: she was not a seasoned actress, and there were very few ways you could interpret this role in a great and memorable way (because of the unreachable success of GF1 and GF2, as others mentioned).

TL; DR: it was a hard first role for a young actress

Re: Francis Ford Coppola’s $100M Dollar Bet

#80

Post by skavi »

richardfey wrote: post #76
scop wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with…

> especially in the current era of horrible movies Isn't this always the case? Have we ever had an era when people thought "glad to be in the current era of great movies"?

I don’t know about movies, but a few years back, it seemed widely accepted that we were in a golden era of television. During the penultimate season of Game of Thrones maybe.
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