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As Deadline first told you, Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis was always destined for an Imax release. Heck, the first screening was shown at Universal CityWalk Imax theater. So, there’s no news in the fact that the $120 million dystopian future epic is getting a global Imax release. But here’s some: we hear that Coppola himself secured a commitment that Megalopolis will play IMAX in at least 20 U.S. cities in late September. IMAX screens have been a major part of his vision for his self-funded film, so this was in place even before he unveiled the film for the first time at a buyer’s screening, after which a cynical press dug in that he had not yet secured a distributor in the U.S. Coppola, his lawyer Barry Hirsch, and Goodfellas have since made deals in numerous offshore territories.
On Thursday at lunch with media at the Cannes Film Festival, the question posed was whether Coppola’s self-financed passion project would still see the light of day stateside even without a U.S. distributor.
Imax boss Rich Gelfond said, “One of the things that we pride ourselves on is being filmmaker-friendly.”
While saying that the pic was getting a global Imax release, he specified, “It’ll probably be a limited release rather than on all the screens in the world; it almost certainly won’t be that.”
Which means that Megalopolis won’t play on the exhib’s full 1,700 auditoriums around the globe.
Added Gelfond: “We met with him yesterday to discuss the distribution plan and I think we need to wait until he has a domestic distributor. As you know, he has five international distributors. We want to come up with a coordinated global strategy, and we have a number of next steps before we do that.”
“We have dates with him, but we want to wait until all the distribution is settled down before we discuss,” he continued, referring to a release date.
“We also are working on a live event with him; we’re trying to accomplish a live event before Megalopolis, so someone interviewing Francis,” Gelfond said.
No word on who’s taking Coppola’s Megalopolis stateside. The filmmaker will be selling streaming and TV rights separately, we understand.
What audience is Megalopolis for? Gelfond believes its “cinephiles and fans of Coppola.” The large format exhibitor is doing research screenings here at Cannes to collect more intel on how the picture could be positioned to exhibitors.
Megalopolis will be unveiled to the world tonight in Cannes.