Ray Richmond: ‘Megalopolis’ trailer underscores risks of viral marketing
This already figured to be an uphill climb for “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed ($120 million) epic that had generated decidedly mixed reviews coming out of its May premiere at Cannes. While it also generated a seven-minute standing ovation for that first screening, it logged in at a lukewarm 53% on Rotten Tomatoes from 68 reviews. The somewhat bewildered consensus from those early critiques was that the movie was a beautiful, imaginative, erudite disaster bolstered by flashes of brilliance.
Hoping to launch a preemptive strike on any other critics looking to denigrate the movie and get a jump on any potential bandwagon of negativity, the Lionsgate marketing department outsmarted itself so badly that heads had to be rolling by midweek. It released an official trailer on Wednesday that pushed, without an ounce of subtlety, to make the point that any critical pans of “Megalopolis” could put reviewers in the same box as any critic who had dared question the quality of such past Coppola masterworks as “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” It inserted at the opening of the trailer purported snippets of slams of those films from such high-profile critics as Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby.
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Yes, there was Kael writing that “The Godfather” was “diminished by its artiness” in The New Yorker, Canby writing that “Apocalypse Now” was “Hollow at its core” and Ebert calling “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a triumph of style over substance.” There were other critics weighing in with other quotes, too, even a few who – unlike Kael, Sarris, Ebert and Canby – were still living. Rex Reed was quoted as calling “Apocalypse Now” “An epic piece of trash.”
Unfortunately, the quotes all had one thing in common: they were entirely fabricated. Made up out of whole cloth. This much was deduced by a few writers who discovered it by doing some pretty rudimentary fact-checking. There’s this thing called the internet now that makes this kind of research ridiculously easy. It’s especially true of, say, Kael and Sarris, who while they were alive were two of the most legendary names in film criticism. Plus, Kael in particular happened to love “The Godfather.”
Talk about an unforced error. This one was downright humiliating. Once it became clear the quotes were made up a few hours after it launched, Lionsgate immediately pulled the trailer and released the following statement: “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis.’ We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”
My initial response to this is: vetting process? What vetting profess? Shouldn’t confirming the legitimacy of the review snippets have been the bare minimum? Also, kind of a hollow mea culpa to “the critics involved” since many of them are deceased. The whole thing just smacks of utter incompetence, lame even as ill-conceived viral marketing stunts go. Evidently, someone thought no one would bother checking into the legitimacy. Not smart. It almost smacks of AI.
I understand what Lionsgate was going for. They were trying to get some chatter going for a movie that already appeared to have a strike or two against it. Unfortunately, the cleverness of the concept backfired because it was built on a foundation of fakery – something that could easily have been avoided had a few more ounces of thought gone into it.
But beyond getting busted for the transgression, why would focusing on critics who slammed, say, “The Godfather” be a great way to promote “Megalopolis”? If the idea was to try to open critics’ eyes to the greatness and grandeur of the new film (which hits theaters across the United States on September 27), it failed to connect. The trailer had opened with a narrator dramatically intoning, “True genius is often misunderstood.” The apparent message was, “Appreciate this, you dweeby critics, or prepare for history to leave you looking foolish!”
Here’s the thing I could have told Lionsgate even before things went south in such a massive way: as a recovering TV critic myself, I can tell you that this particular brand of human hates being told what to think, much less being bullied into submission. What writer is going to want to cover “Megalopolis” favorably after this? And even had the trailer used actual quotes, it wouldn’t have proven anything apart from the fact people aren’t lemmings., They have different opinions, and none of them are necessarily wrong. Merely because a film becomes universally revered by the critical community doesn’t discount any of the conflicting views.
That’s what is so ridiculous about this whole sad affair. No critic worth his or her salt should care what anyone has has to write or say about a given film. In the case of “Megalopolis,” it’s already been established that response has been mixed, even inside individual reviews. All that Trailergate accomplished was to shine an even brighter spotlight on what’s sure to be wildly divergent views. So much for any chance of the film sneaking in under the radar. Again, not that this was ever likely, anyway. But any scent of intimidation is likely to get critics’ dander up so they’re even tougher on the film than they might previously have been.
I have to believe that Mr. Coppola isn’t terribly thrilled by any of this. But I have to admit that I can’t wait to see what the revised “Megalopolis” trailer looks like whenever it gets released.
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