Francis Ford Coppola’s epic sci-fi film Megalopolis has quite literally been decades in the making. After years of stagnating, the director has finally gotten his passion project off the ground, and the first public audience will soon get to see the film – Megalopolis will premiere in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 17, according to Deadline. This will mark the first viewing for the film outside of a closed screening, and will provide the first look at the project that stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Espositio, Nathalie Emmanuel, and more.

The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as the head of Cannes, Thierry Fremaux, recently told Variety, “Megalopolis is a project that [Coppola] wanted to achieve for so long and he did it independently, in his own way, as an artist. He built the legend of the Cannes Film Festival and it would be an honor to welcome him back, as a filmmaker who comes to present his new film.” This will not be the true first time that Megalopolis will be seen, as Coppola previously screened the film for distributors in March.

Plot details remain thin, but according to a logline from Coppola, “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.” The film stars Driver as Caesar, an architect who looks to rebuild an alternate version of New York City following a devastating accident. Caesar will go head-to-head with the mayor, Frank (Esposito), while Emmanuel portray’s the mayor’s daughter, Julia. The film also stars Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman, D.B. Sweeney, Jason Schwartzman, Baily Ives, Grace Vanderwaal and James Remar.

This Isn’t Coppola’s First Time at Cannes

This will not mark Coppola‘s first tango at Cannes – he notably brought his 1979 war film Apocalypse Now to the festival. At the time, Apocalypse Now, similar to Megalopolis, had few details released about its plot (even now, only a first-look image at Megalopolis has been revealed). However, Apocalypse Now went onto win Cannes‘ prestigious Palme d’Or award – perhaps the same fate awaits Megalopolis.

There is also another looming question for Coppola: getting the film into theaters. Despite financing the film with more than $100 million of his own money, Coppola has not yet secured a distributor for Megalopolis, though according to Deadline, he’s emphasizing an IMAX deal for the film. This could soon change, though, especially given that the film has already been screened for buyers once and will be screened for them again at Cannes. Coppola directed Megalopolis from a self-written script and is producing the film via his production company, American Zoetrope, alongside Michael Bederman.

Coppola is aiming for a 2024 release for Megalopolis.

via Collider