Megalopolis is a disaster in every way for Francis Ford Coppola

The story of Megalopolis is a fascinating one, but also a story that has now come to a sad and rather inevitable conclusion. Francis Ford Coppola's cinematic white whale is finally in cinemas after decades of the director's wrangling and personal financial risk but, after its opening weekend, it's already proving to be a bit of a disaster.

Coppola first came up with the idea for Megalopolis — following a visionary architect who wants to rebuild a ruined city as a futuristic utopia — way back in the 1970s. By the time he was ready to make it at the end of the 1980s, he had burned a lot of his Hollywood capital on some big box office flops like One From the Heart and Rumble Fish. No one was willing to make it.

He tried again in the early 2000s but, when that didn't pan out, he decided he would have to finance the thing himself. In 2021, Coppola sold his California winery and borrowed cash in order to plunge $120m (£89m) of his own money into making Megalopolis a reality on his terms and with his creative control in place.

At this stage, it doesn't seem likely that Coppola will be getting much return on that very personal financial investment. Deadline reported last week that Megalopolis was on track to earn just $5-7m (£3.7-5.2m) in its opening weekend. In the end, it was worse than that. The film only managed a miserable $4m (£3m) from 1,854 screens, according to Variety.

For context, another A-list passion project from this year, Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga – Part One, opened with $11m (£8.2m) and ended up at just $36m (£26.9m) worldwide, scuttling ambitious release plans for its sequel. If Megalopolis follows the same trajectory, we can expect it to earn just $13m (£9.7m) by the end of its run.

Read more: Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Megalopolis’ Cast Purposefully Includes ‘Canceled’ Actors (IndieWire)

It's a sad conclusion to a story that has run for almost 50 years of the life of one of American cinema's most famous filmmakers. But ultimately, this feels as if it was always likely to happen. There's a reason that no studio was willing to give Coppola the money he needed to make Megalopolis.

Is there a market for an ambitious, bizarre sci-fi epic based on the story of an obscure event from the history of Ancient Rome? This weekend would suggest there isn't. It doesn't help that the response from film critics has been pretty potent.

Just 49% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a positive review and it's fair to say the negatives have been very negative. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian said the film is "megabloated and megaboring", while Maureen Lee Lenker in Entertainment Weekly called it "both chaotic and unspeakably boring".

Read more: Megalopolis Includes an Interactive Portion with the Audience in Select Theaters. Here's What Happens (People)

That response comes hand in hand with numerous reports of backstage controversy during the Megalopolis shoot. Coppola is currently suing Variety for an article that accused him of "unprofessional" behaviour on set, including sexual harassment of women. The director said the piece contained "false and defamatory statements" about his conduct.

All of this controversy appears to have made things worse for a movie that was already a big swing on the behalf of its director. A cloud of negativity — mostly of Coppola's own making — has surrounded the project throughout the final leg of its long journey to the big screen and, damningly, it turns out that one of the few people waiting with bated breath for this release was the director behind it.

Megalopolis is in UK and US cinemas now.