In Cannes, Francis Ford Coppola talks Trump, self-financing 'Megalopolis' and why he has no regrets

abcnews.go.com:

Much attention has been paid to the $120 million of his own fortune that Francis Ford Coppola put up to make the futuristic epic “Megalopolis.”

CANNES, France — Much attention has been paid to the $120 million of his own fortune that Francis Ford Coppola put up to make the futuristic epic “Megalopolis,” but the director himself isn't much concerned.

“I don’t care. I never cared,” Coppola said of money, speaking to reporters at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. “The money doesn’t matter. What is important are the friends. Because friends will never let you down. Money may evaporate.”

Coppola sold a piece of his winery business to finance “Megalopolis," a passion project the filmmaker has been pondering for decades. Regardless of the outcome — the film is seeking a North American distributor — he's going to be fine, financially, Coppola said.

“My children, without exception, they have wonderful careers without a fortune,” he said. “They don’t need a fortune.”

Coppola faced questions from the press the day after premiering the hotly anticipated “Megalopolis," starring Adam Driver as an architect named Cesar Catalina who is trying to build a utopia in a future New York City. Critics called the film everything from a disaster to an admirably ambitious gambit that only Coppola could make.

Coppola fashions his film as a Roman Empire-esque tale. The closer he got to making it, he said, the more relevant it seemed to him.

“What's happening in America, in our republic, our democracy, is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago,” said Coppola, who lamented the resurgence of the “neo-right, even fascist tradition.”

“Our politics has taken us to the point where we might lose our republic,” he continued.