<p class="ingestion featured-caption">Adam Driver as Cesar on the "Megalopolis" poster.Lionsgate Films</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" opens in theaters Friday after decades in development.</li><li>The film, set in an imagined New York City, stars Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, and Giancarlo Esposito.</li></ul><p>The saga of Francis Ford Coppola bringing his epic new movie "Megalopolis" to the big screen is almost as long and winding as the movie itself. </p><p>The project has spent <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C_qRwGQud-8/?hl=en&img_index=1">decades</a> in development, with stars like Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio both at one point interested in appearing in it. Coppola even commissioned a symphony for the movie almost two decades before a single frame of it had been shot. After numerous false starts, Coppola finally began filming his fable in 2022 with <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/francis-ford-coppola-spend-120-million-megalopolis-2022-2">$120 million of self-financing</a>.</p><p>"Megalopolis" is set in an imagined New York City and follows a visionary architect named Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) as he clashes with a corrupt mayor (Giancarlo Esposito) in his quest to rebuild the city after a devastating disaster. The movie also stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, and Dustin Hoffman.</p><p>Coppola's epic has been mired in controversy since it screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May. There were allegations of <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/megalopolis-trailer-movie-francis-ford-coppola-drama-timeline-2024-8">on-set misconduct by Coppola</a>, and a trailer by Lionsgate, which is releasing the movie, was pulled after it was discovered it featured <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/megalopolis-trailer-movie-francis-ford-coppola-drama-timeline-2024-8#august-2024-lionsgate-pulls-a-trailer-because-it-used-fake-quotes-3">fabricated quotes from critics</a>.</p><p>The <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/megalopolis-francis-ford-coppola-on-conspiracy-of-bad-reviews-cannes-2024-5">critic response to "Megalopolis"</a> has been no less polarizing. As of publication, the film has a 51% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what critics think of the movie, which opens in theaters Friday.</p>