With a budget of $120 million, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" grossed only $4 million on its opening weekend, making it one of the worst box office openings for a $100M+ movie to date.
Factoring in marketing costs and the theaters taking their cut of the profits, Megalopolis would need to make at least $300 million to break even. I think it's safe to say that's not happening.
It would have been THE worst opening for a $100 million movie ever, had it not been for Pluto Nash's horriffic opening 22 years ago.
Even adjusting for inflation, Pluto Nash still wins. It opened to $3.5M in today's money.
I feel like there hasn't been much marketing for Megalopolis. Could be a factor. I'd say the long run time doesn't help, but Oppenheimer counters that point.
Oppenheimer had the advantage of people knowing basically what the story was about. The poster for Megalopolis doesn't really tell me what it's about beyond Adam Driver apparently being an architect.
It's the same reason everything is a reboot or remake: A lot of the marketing cost has already been taken care of with the first movie.
Coppola was heavily involved in the production of the film where some of the abuse happened, and during the fallout he allegedly tried to sue the victim of the abuse for breach of contract
I've mostly heard about the controversies (the fake AI quotes in the trailer, some alleged #metoo stuff on set, ...). Reviews seem very mixed, some reviewers hate it, others love it, which makes me think some of them just don't 'get' it?
This is the second time I have heard about this film, the last time being the release of the first teaser trailer. Studios love to spend 70 million marketing budgets on broadcast TV advertising and completely missing their target audience. In the case of sci-fi, most of us are more responsive to online marketing campaigns and this film has the online presence of an Amish priest.