{"id":7394,"date":"2025-05-09T17:31:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T17:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/?p=7394"},"modified":"2025-05-15T18:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T18:19:01","slug":"star-of-105000000-flop-didnt-realise-film-would-be-so-wacky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/star-of-105000000-flop-didnt-realise-film-would-be-so-wacky\/","title":{"rendered":"Star of $105,000,000 flop didn\u2019t realise film would be so \u2018wacky\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Shia\t<\/div>
Shia LaBeouf expected ‘wacky’ … but not THAT ‘wacky’ (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A star of one of 2024’s biggest box office flops has confessed that he didn’t think the film he starred in would wind up being so ‘wacky’.<\/p>\n

Megalopolis, directed by legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, made just $14.3million (\u00a311m) from a budget of more than $120m (\u00a390m).<\/p>\n

A labour of love for the Godfather director, Megalopolis had been in development for nearly 45 years<\/a> by the time it hit screens, with Francis, 86, mostly financing the film himself.<\/p>\n

Drawing parallels between modern day USA and the demise of the Roman Republic, Megalopolis followed an architect clashing with a parallel New York<\/a>’s political elite.<\/p>\n

Despite starring the likes of Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, and Nathalie Emmanuel, Megalopolis wound up a major commercial failure.<\/p>\n

Critics were polarised while audiences were left dumbfounded – and one of the movie’s stars says he had a similar experience when he sat down to watch it.<\/p>\n

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He’s not. But he believes he is.<\/p>\n<p>‘He thinks he’s the actor\u2019s guy – but he’s not. That’s not to say he’s not incredible, it’s just not what his incredible is. It’s not helpful to the actor to get overt notes.’<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"351\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"article-image wp-image-23059124 lazyload\" alt=\"This image released by Lionsgate shows Adam Driver, left, and Nathalie Emmanuel in a scene from "Megalopolis." (Lionsgate via AP)\" loading=\"lazy\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/SEI_219909568-e120.jpg\">\t<\/div><figcaption>Megalopolis lost a huge amount of money at the global box office (Picture: Lionsgate\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"398\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"article-image wp-image-23059114 lazyload\" alt=\"This image released by Lionsgate shows Shia LaBeouf, as Clodio Pulcher, in a scene from "Megalopolis." (Lionsgate via AP)\" loading=\"lazy\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/SEI_222511303-6452.jpg\">\t<\/div><figcaption>Shia played Clodio, the younger cousin of Adam Driver’s character Cesar (Picture: Lionsgate via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Shia continued: ‘Maybe it’s just the movie that I worked on him with, but it felt like we had to mine his mind to figure out what we were even talking about.<\/p>\n<p>‘[There ended up being] a lot of questions on my end, which required answers, which frustrated our relationship. I became a nuisance.’<\/p>\n<p>Shia then admitted that Megalopolis ended up for ‘wackier’ than he’d expected, confessing that, while he put ‘wackiness’ into his character, he didn’t anticipate that feeling from the rest of the movie.<\/p>\n<p>‘I never thought we were going for wacky. I thought my character was wacky and I served that for the film. But I didn’t think the whole movie was [going to be] wacky.’<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"431\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"article-image wp-image-23059126 lazyload\" alt=\"Mandatory Credit: Photo by Anthony Harvey\/REX\/Shutterstock (14482327bl) Shia LaBeouf 'Megalopolis' premiere, 77th Cannes Film Festival, France - 16 May 2024\" loading=\"lazy\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/SEI_250584121-ac3d.jpg\">\t<\/div><figcaption>Shia struggled to get on board with Francis Ford Coppola’s vision (Picture: Anthony Harvey\/REX\/Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Megalopolis polarised critics, with almost equal numbers on both sides arguing that it was both Francis Ford Coppola’s best and worst film of all time. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Metro<\/strong>‘s Tori Brazier <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2024\/09\/28\/still-cant-forget-worst-film-ever-seen-2-21695758\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2024\/09\/28\/still-cant-forget-worst-film-ever-seen-2-21695758\/\">called it ‘the worst film I’ve ever seen,’<\/a> describing Shia’s character Clodio as ‘baffling’ and as something that is ‘not properly explained’.<\/p>\n<p>The film lost a whopping $110m at the global box office upon its release, making it one of the most expensive movie financial failures of recent times.<\/p>\n<p>And unfortunately it’s <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2017\/04\/05\/shia-labeoufs-film-man-down-made-a-dismal-7-on-its-opening-weekend-6555011\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2017\/04\/05\/shia-labeoufs-film-man-down-made-a-dismal-7-on-its-opening-weekend-6555011\/\">not the only recent box office bomb for Shia<\/a>, whose 2015 film Man Down earned him just \u00a37 from UK audiences after only one ticket was sold at a cinema in Burnley.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, despite starring Shia alongside Gary Oldman, the film only made $450,000 (\u00a3338,000) and was quickly sent to video-on-demand services.<\/p>\n<p><em>Metro has contacted Francis Ford Coppola for comment.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Got a story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">If you\u2019ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\">Metro.co.uk<\/a> entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/submit-stuff\/\">Submit Stuff<\/a> page – we\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shia LaBeouf expected ‘wacky’ … but not THAT ‘wacky’ (Picture: Getty) A star of one of 2024’s biggest box office flops has confessed that he didn’t think the film he starred in would wind up being so ‘wacky’. Megalopolis, directed by legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, made just $14.3million (\u00a311m) from a budget of more than $120m (\u00a390m). A labour of love for the Godfather director, Megalopolis had been in development for nearly 45 years by the time it hit … <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/star-of-105000000-flop-didnt-realise-film-would-be-so-wacky\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> “Star of $105,000,000 flop didn\u2019t realise film would be so \u2018wacky\u2019”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7400,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions\/7400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}