Lionsgate is pulling the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s “Megalopolis” that was released this morning after the internet observed that quotes about older Coppola films like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” as attributed to film critics like Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Roger Ebert, and more, all appeared to be fabricated.
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a spokesman for the company said in a statement provided to IndieWire. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”
From the moment Lionsgate released the first trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” on Wednesday morning, online cinephiles began to suspect that something was amiss. The trailer attempted to lean into the film’s polarizing critical response by posting negative reviews from Coppola films like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” that are now universally accepted as classics. The only problem, many fans began to notice, was that many of the quotes attributed to the likes of Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert did not actually appear in those critics’ official reviews of the films.
More to come…