Francis Ford Coppola collaborates with Image Comics for the graphic novel MEGALOPOLIS

Over the weekend at WonderCon, it was announced that Francis Ford Coppola had partnered with Image Comics to produce a graphic novel for its upcoming epic film Megalopolis. Image Comics’ new Syzygy imprint is developing the project with former publisher IDW Chris Ryall adapting the story with the artist Jacob Phillips.

Ryall, who was on the film set with Coppola as it was filming, told Popverse: ‘What’s exciting is that I worked directly with him on just this one. This isn’t the sort of thing where he’s licensed the material – the film and the book are his alone. We spent a few hours in Atlanta last month talking not only about this graphic novel, but also about the childhood comics he loved, and all the while he was permissive and encouraging in telling us to make the book is pretty much its own thing, so it was kind of a mind boggling arrangement, to work directly with someone of his stature on something like this.

He went on to add, “And for me, as a huge fan of not only Jacob’s color work on the Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips graphic novels, but certainly also the stunning graphics and colors of his That Texas Blood series, working with Jacob while he’s on such a creative pitch it’s also a thrill. It’ll be fun to build this particular corner of Francis’ new town.

The film tells the story of an architect who dreams of a utopian version of New York in the near future and his battle with the conservative mayor, who has other ideas about the city. Contained within the epic are a myriad of storylines and characters. “The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its social problems in this epic story of political ambition.”

Coppola described the film as “a love story. A woman is torn between loyalties to two men. But not just two men. Every man comes with a philosophical principle. One of hers is her father who raised her, who taught her Latin in her womb and is devoted to a much more classical view of society, the kind of view of Marcus Aurelius. The other, who is the lover, is the father’s enemy but is dedicated to a much more progressive ‘Let’s jump into the future, let’s jump over all this garbage that has contaminated humanity for 10,000 years. We discover what we really are, that we are an enlightened, friendly, joyful species.’”

Coppola has also previously said of the film, “What would make me really happy? It’s not winning a lot of Oscars because I already have a lot and maybe more than I deserve. And it’s not that I make a lot of money, although I think as time goes on it will make a lot of money because everything people keep looking at and finding new things, that makes money. [Megalopolis] and the society we live in is the only one available to us? How can we improve it? Education, mental health? What the film is really proposing is that utopia is not a place. Is how can we improve everything? Every year, come up with two, three or four ideas that make it better.”

“I’d smile in my grave if I thought something like this happened, because people talk about what movies really mean if you give them something. If you encouraged people to discuss marriage, education, health, justice, opportunity, freedom and all of that wonderful things that human beings have conceived. And ask yourself the question, how can we make it even better? That would be great. Because I bet they would do it better if they had that conversation.”

The cast of the film includes Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzmann, Laurence Fishburne, Grace Vander Waal, Kathryn Hunter, James Remar, Thalia Shire. Dustin Hoffmann, Cloe Fineman (Saturday night live), Isabelle Kusman (Licorice pizza), DB Sweeney (Fire in the sky), Bailey IvesAND Giancarlo Esposito.