Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola accepted the facetious Razzie Award for worst director for his sprawling sci-fi drama “Megalopolis,” which was filmed in metro Atlanta and cost him $120 million of his own money since nobody else was willing to fund it.
“I am thrilled to accept the Razzie award in so many important categories for @megalopolisfilm,” Coppola wrote on Instagram, “and for the distinctive honor of being nominated as the worst director, worst screenplay, and worst picture at a time when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking!”
The awards are meant as the anti-Oscars, and most winners ignore them.
But Coppola, ever the iconoclast, used the award to go after the film industry.
“In this wreck of a world today, where ART is given scores as if it were professional wrestling,” Coppola wrote, “I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules laid down by an industry so terrified of risk that despite the enormous pool of young talent at its disposal, may not create pictures that will be relevant and alive 50 years from now.”
Coppola has created plenty of classic films, including “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” But “Megalopolis” was a flop, generating just $12 million in global box office when it was released last fall. A co-star Jon Voight also won a Razzie for worst supporting actor.
The Razzies, run by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation, dubbed the film “WTF: The Movie” and called it “an incoherent $120 million mess from the fabled director.” The voters are a mix of film fans, journalists and critics.
“Megalopolis” lost the worst movie Razzie to “Madame Web.”
Coppola concluded his Instagram comments with: “My sincere thanks to all my brilliant colleagues who joined me to make our work of art, MEGALOPOLIS, and let us remind ourselves us that box office is only about money, and like war, stupidity and politics has no true place in our future.”
Sandra Bullock (“All About Steve”) and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (”Baywatch”) have accepted Razzies in the past.
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