Francis Ford Coppola’s trailer for his new movie “Megalopolis” just got yanked by Lionsgate … the company is now owning up to their screw-up with a public apology, after it turned out the trailer included a bunch of fake critic quotes.
The trailer dropped Wednesday … kicking off with quotes from big-name critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert commenting on Francis’ past films.
But things quickly went sideways — Kael’s quote said “The Godfather” was “diminished by its artsiness” — a total head-scratcher since she made it clear she actually loved the movie in her OG review.
Another questionable quote supposedly came from Ebert about Coppola’s 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” claiming it was “a triumph of style over substance” … which Vulture noted he definitely did not write.
The trailer, which racked up more than 1.3 million views before the whole mess blew up, also had some bogus quotes from critics Rex Reed and Vincent Candy about the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now.”
A Lionsgate spokesperson announced they were recalling the trailer … adding in a statement, “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.”
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How those fake quotes ended up in the trailer is still a mystery — some are even pointing fingers at artificial intelligence.
It looks like the goal may have been to challenge the mixed Cannes reviews Francis’ self-financed $120M “Megalopolis” opened up to earlier this year … by leaning into the critical divisiveness over his classics. A critical mistake, it seems.
