Francis Ford Coppola praises ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ amid audience backlash

Posted On October 7, 2024October 7, 2024

Under-fire director Francis Ford Coppola has praised Todd Phillips’s sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux amid criticism. His comments come as his lifelong passion project, Megalopolis, also faces harsh critical reception, and his onset behaviour is scrutinised.

Joker: Folie à Deux was released in cinemas on October 4th and acts as the long-awaited response to 2019’s Academy Award-winning hit, Joker. It sees star Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, Lady Gaga joins him as his romantic interest, Lee Quinzel, with fresh faces Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener joining the cast. For the sequel, Zazie Beetz also returns from the original.

Despite being hotly-anticipated, Folie à Deux has not been well-received, with the screenplay and musical numbers encountering much criticism, regardless of Phoenix and Gaga being praised almost across the board. It’s currently a box office bomb, and has grossed $121million globally against a budget of $200 million. 

One man who has thrown his support behind Folie à Deux is Coppola. While he’s an undeniably legendary filmmaker due to his influential efforts, such as The Godfather trilogy, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, he’s also released many critically derided efforts.

Writing on Instagram on October 6th, the New Hollywood auteur wrote that Phillips’ films “always amaze me and I enjoy them thoroughly. Ever since the wonderful The Hangover he’s always one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux!”

“I am also honoured that the films DP, Lawrence Sher, mentioned that the film is visually inspired by One From the Heart,” he added, mentioning the 1982 musical drama of his own that was a critical and commercial failure.

What has happened with Megalopolis and Francis Ford Coppola?

One From the Heart is just one of Coppola’s many films that have been critically slammed. His sprawling science-fiction epic, Megalopolis, which has an all-star cast featuring Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, and Jon Voight, and was first conceived in 1977, has been an immense disaster. A mostly self-funded project, after arriving on September 27th this year, it has grossed just $8.5million against a reported budget of over $120million. 

As well as facing criticism for casting LaBeouf in Megalopolis, due to the domestic abuse claims made by two ex-girlfriends, including musician FKA Twigs – which the actor denies – Coppola has also been embroiled in controversy during the run-up to his movie hitting theatres.

In May, 2024, before the premiere of Megalopolis at the Cannes Film Festival, a report was published that alleged Coppola tried to kiss female background actors during a sequence shot in an Atlanta nightclub. It was also alleged that he pulled women to sit on his lap. After the claim was made, Coppola addressed the accusations, maintaining, “I’m not touchy-feely. I’m too shy.”

However, footage of the events in question was then released by Variety in July. As well as delving further into his alleged behaviour on set, it also claimed that he said through a microphone: “Sorry if I come up to you and kiss you. Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”

Since then, Coppola has compared the reaction to Megalopolis as being very similar to when Apocalypse Now came out, a point which has also divided fans.

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