Lionsgate is recalling its latest trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s epic “Megalopolis,” which featured a littany of fabricated quotes from famous film critics.
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement provided to Variety. “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.”
The trailer, released on Wednesday morning, aimed to position Coppola’s latest film as a work of art that would withstand the test of time, much like his previous masterpieces “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.”
The video included several quotes from critics panning Coppola’s previous work — but none of the phrases, attributed to the likes of Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, could be found in any of their reviews.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman was incorrectly cited as calling the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a beautiful mess” and highlighting its “absurdity” when he reviewed the film for Entertainment Weekly, where he worked at the time of its release.
“Even if you’re one of those people who don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths. Then again, the trivial scandal of all this is that the whole ‘Megalopolis’ trailer is built on a false narrative,” Gleiberman said of the trailer’s falsified quotes. “Critics loved ‘The Godfather.’ And though ‘Apocalypse Now’ was divisive, it received a lot of crucial critical support. As far as me calling ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ ‘a beautiful mess,’ I only wish I’d said that! Regarding that film, it now sounds kind.”
It’s not clear where most of the quotes featured in the trailer came from — with the exception of Roger Ebert’s comment, “a triumph of style over substance,” which was actually pulled from his 1989 review of “Batman,” and not about “Dracula,” as indicated in the trailer.
The trailer snafu is the latest in a string of scandals befalling the $120 million production, which Coppola financed entirely himself. Last month, Variety exclusively obtained video depicting Coppola trying to kiss young female extras on the set of the project, as additional crew members detailed his unprofessional behavior during production.
“Megalopolis” hits U.S. theaters on Sept. 27.