Courtesy of Paul Stuart
Francis Ford Coppola is rounding out the cast to his big-budget indie film Megalopolis.
The call sheet is now a family affair, with Coppola’s sister (and his Godfather star) Talia Shire and nephew Jason Schwartzman joining the project. Also joining the cast are Shia LaBeouf, Grace Vanderwaal, Kathryn Hunter and James Remar.
Megalopolis notably marks LaBeouf’s highest profile project since former girlfriend FKA Twigs detailed in a February 2021 lawsuit alleged abuse she suffered at his hands. The actor has been back in the headlines over the past week as he prepares to launch his film Padre Pio on Sept. 2 at the Venice Film Festival. He pushed back at filmmaker Olivia Wilde saying she fired him from her fellow Venice title Don’t Worry Darling, asserting that he quit and leaking text messages and a video from Wilde he says proves that point.
Coppola, whose Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part Two (1974) both won best picture and are considered two of the greatest films of all time, is independently financing Megalopolis, which is budgeted at just under $100 million.
“There’s a certain way everyone thinks a film should be, and it rubs against the grain if you have another idea,” Coppola told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year of self-financing the project. “People can be very unaccepting, but sometimes the other idea represents what’s coming in the future. That is worthy of being considered.”
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Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight and Aubrey Plaza star in the film, which has a mysterious logline: “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love.”
Shire, who is also known for the Rocky franchise, is repped by Sovereign Talent Group.
Schartzman, who next appears in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, is repped by UTA, Ocean Avenue and Sloane Offer.
LaBeouf is repped by John Crosby Management and attorney Matt Saver.
VanderWaal, known for the Disney+ feature Stargirl, is repped by LBI Entertainment, WME, Ziffren Brittenham and Narrative.
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Hunter, who appeared in the Denzel Washington awards contender The Tragedy of Macbeth, is repped by Stanton Davidson Associates. Remar, whose long career has included TV work in Dexter and a turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is repped by Oppenheimer.