Studio Pulls Megalopolis Trailer Due to Fake Reviews

The trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis has been pulled by Lionsgate because it contained fabricated quotes from real film critics about the director’s previous works.

The studio that distributed the film in the United States apologized to critics and director Coppola for “an unforgivable mistake made during the screening process.”

“We screwed up,” Lionsgate said in a statement Wednesday.

Coppola’s self-funded film Megalopolis received mixed reviews at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The trailer, released now, could have been a play on the lukewarm reception, going back in time to show negative reviews of past Coppola films and trying to show that critics aren’t always the best judges. “Genius is often misunderstood,” says Megalopolis co-star Laurence Fishburne in the narration.

But those negative reviews are fabricated.

The ad quoted critic Pauline Kael as saying “The Godfather is marred by its artistry”, but her actual review was decidedly positive.

Likewise, it was not true that critic Rex Reed called Apocalypse Now a “massive piece of garbage.”

And the late film critic Roger Ebert’s accusation that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a “triumph of style over substance” appears to have been taken from his review of Tim Burton’s Batman, written by another director.

It is unclear how these quotes came to be.

The trailer was viewed more than 1.3 million times in just one day after being posted online.

The epic fantasy film, which stars Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza and Nathalie Emmanuel, cost Coppola an estimated $120m (£91.6m) to make.

In his review, The BBC’s Nicholas Barber called it “boastful and dangerously curious”.It’s like someone is recalling a “crazy dream.”

The film is scheduled to be released in U.S. theaters on September 27.

The production was embroiled in another controversy in May, when Variety obtained footage showing Mr Coppola attempting to kiss a female extra during a nightclub scene on the set of Megalopolis last year. Sources told The Guardian that the famed director had behaved inappropriately toward women in his films.

Mr. Coppola denied the allegations, telling The New York Times in June: “I’m not emotionally in touch. I’m too shy.”