Francis Ford Coppola, the celebrated director of the “Godfather” movies and “Apocalypse Now,” sued the Hollywood trade magazine Variety and two of its editors for libel this week after it reported that he had behaved unprofessionally on the “Megalopolis” set, including by trying to kiss extras.
Coppola, 85, is seeking at least $15 million in damages.
The Variety article, which was published in July, said Coppola had pulled women onto his lap and tried to kiss them during the filming of a nightclub sequence. The article included two videos from the set in which the director appears to be trying to hug and kiss extras.
The claims echoed those in an article that was published by The Guardian in May. An executive co-producer of the film, which is scheduled to open in theaters this month, told The Guardian that he had heard no complaints of misconduct and that Coppola’s behavior during that sequence was intended to “establish the spirit of the scene.”
Libel cases against public figures face a high bar in the United States. People who file such suits must prove not only that a falsehood harmed their reputation, but that the publisher knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth.
“To see our collective efforts tainted by false, reckless and irresponsible reporting is devastating,” Coppola said in a statement on Wednesday, the day his suit was filed in California state court. “No publication, especially a legacy industry outlet, should be enabled to use surreptitious video and unnamed sources in pursuit of their own financial gain.”
Coppola sold part of his wine estate to put up $120 million to finance “Megalopolis,” an ambitious and experimental saga about an architect (Adam Driver) who seeks to rebuild a futuristic New York City.
Brooke Jaffe, a spokeswoman for Penske Media Corporation, which publishes Variety, said in a statement that “while we will not comment on active litigation, we stand by our reporters.” She said the statement was also on behalf of Brent Lang and Tatiana Siegel, the two executive editors who wrote the article.
Coppola said in his lawsuit that he had asked Variety to retract the article and had supplied evidence that its reporting was false. Variety “refused and doubled down,” the suit said.
The Variety article did not quote by name anybody who was uncomfortable with Coppola’s actions on the “Megalopolis” set. But in a separate article that Variety published a week later and is not part of Coppola’s lawsuit, the actress Lauren Pagone identified herself as one of the extras seen in the videos. She said she was “in shock” and “caught off guard” by Coppola’s behavior.
Another actress, Rayna Menz, has told Deadline that she was an extra in the nightclub scene and that Coppola “did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable.”
Coppola’s lawsuit argued that because workers on the “Megalopolis” set were required to sign nondisclosure agreements and follow a ban on videotaping, Variety should not have trusted its sources, who broke those agreements and violated the ban.
The suit also disputed a phrase in Variety’s article that said Coppola’s attempts to kiss extras resulted in him “inserting himself into the shot and ruining it.” That language, the suit said, unfairly implies that the director “was so aged and infirm that he no longer knew how to direct a motion picture professionally or efficiently.”
“Megalopolis,” Coppola’s first movie in a decade, has had a winding path to the big screen since he conceived it in the 1980s. It debuted in May at the Cannes Film Festival and has received mixed reviews.
Last month the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, pulled a “Megalopolis” trailer that featured negative quotes by famous critics about beloved Coppola films. A critic for Vulture had pointed out that the quotes were fake.
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