Megalopolis Flopped in Theaters—but on TikTok, It’s a Hit

The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman offered an eyewitness account of the phenomenon, writing, “Saw the 6:50 Megalopolis at Union Square. The (not paltry) crowd was cackling at the screen like it was Mommie Dearest or Showgirls. Cheered for ‘go back to the cluuub’ like it’s ‘No wire hangers!’ Credits are rolling and no one wants to leave. Do we have a new camp classic?”

The film has gone viral in part because its plot defies easy explanation. But if you want to know what actually happens in Megalopolis, here goes: Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina, an architect in a retro-futuristic version of New York City called New Rome who wants to construct a utopia from Megalon, a radical material that he won a Nobel Prize for inventing. Cesar’s vision is met with opposition by New Rome’s by-the-book mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), a dynamic further complicated by Cesar’s romantic relationship with Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). There are a ton of other bizarrely named characters doing things in the surrounding dreamscape, played by the likes of Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne, and Dustin Hoffman, among others. At one point, Jon Voight’s Hamilton Crassus asks another character, “What do you think of this boner I’ve got?” At another, Aubrey Plaza’s opportunistic TV personality (her name is Wow Platinum) says, “You’re anal as hell, Cesar,” before kneeling between his legs to add, “And I’m oral as hell.”

Surreal moments like these have become a selling point for many TikTok users, who have reveled in their uncomfortable Megalopolis viewing experiences, captured their before-and-after reactions to the movie, and even filmed a musical version of the film. That’s more than can be said for another recent flop, Joker: Folie à Deux, which managed to earn an even lower D CinemaScore. Coppola, at least, has tipped his hat to that film’s director, Todd Philips: “Ever since the wonderful The Hangover he’s always one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux,” Coppola wrote on Instagram.

With theatrical release windows that have shrunk at the same rate as attention spans, filmmakers have to meet audiences where they’re at—even the New Hollywood masters like Coppola. Ahead of Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese enlisted his Gen Z daughter Francesca to help launch profiles for him on TikTok and Letterboxd. The strategy paid off: 46% of opening night moviegoers for Killers were under age 35, and the movie later earned 10 Oscar nominations. Megalopolis doesn’t have the industry support necessary for awards recognition, but its 85-year-old auteur is logging on anyway. The man behind Apocalypse Now and The Godfather recently invited the internet to ask him anything. In the spirited Q&A, Coppola shared his own Letterboxd and confirmed that, as his divisive movie suggests, he thinks about the Roman empire “quite a lot.”

While speaking with Rolling Stone earlier this year, Coppola said, “In a way, I have nothing left to lose anymore.” But perhaps there’s something to be gained from the audacious director’s first meme-age film.