Francis Ford Coppola’s Cult Curio Megalopolis Gets a Comic Book Adaptation

It’s been over a year since Francis Ford Coppola unleashed Megalopolis into the world, the weird and possibly final movie in his illustrious career. Megalopolis was met with confusion and revulsion but has garnered a group of fans who admire its strange ambition. While Megalopolis still doesn’t have a physical release, those fans can relive the experience… in comic book form.

In Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel, writer Chris Ryall and artist Jacob Phillips put their own spin on Coppola’s vision. The writer of graphic novel adaptations of Shaun of the Dead and the Masters of Horror series, Ryall knows how to translate other voices into comic book form. But Megalopolis is so inextricably tied to Coppola that the project presented a unique challenge.

“With any adaptation I’ve done, I try to be true to the source material while also trying to properly adapt it to this medium, even if that necessitates reworking some scenes to fit the graphic novel form,” Ryall told Comic Book Club Live. “There’s always a voice in the back of my head that is scolding me for being presumptuous by editing or revising the work of an Oscar-winner but I managed to quiet that voice as I went along. In part because Francis was so encouraging to us to make this book its own thing.”

Doing their own thing meant some casting changes, as Phillips modeled the Mayor Cicero character after Forest Whitaker instead of Giancarlo Esposito. However, that stemmed more from the fact that Ryall and Phillips worked off of an earlier version of the script, before casting completed. Likewise, the script didn’t have the infamous interactive moment in which Adam Driver‘s character takes questions from the actual viewing audience, much to Ryall’s disappointment; “Perhaps if we ever do another edition of the book we can add some blank interactive space for the reader to fill in as they wish,” Phillips mused.

Yet, those oddities somehow only make the Megalopolis graphic adaptation more similar in spirit to the original movie. Megalopolis stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, a respected architect living in New Rome, who gains the ability to stop time after discovering an element called Megalon. As Catilina strives to use Megalon to make his vision a reality, he’s caught in a battle with waring factions in the city, including Mayor Cicero (Esposito) and Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). It’s an odd, ambitious movie, that isn’t exactly good, but is certainly one of a kind.

Well, two of a kind, now that a comic book version exists. And until Coppola decides to finally put the movie out on home video, Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel remains the only way to revisit the insanity of that film.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: An Original Graphic Novel is now available from Abrams ComicArts.