Francis Ford Coppola asked Amazon to create customized voice recognition software for the film, but the team building it was laid off in 2022.
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Francis Ford Coppola wanted voice recognition software to let audience members ask Adam Driver’s Cesar character a question during theatrical showings of Megalopolis, according to a Telegraph interview with the director. Then, the software would trigger the theater’s projector to play a clip of “the most relevant response” from Driver.
Apparently, it was actually in the works. Amazon had agreed to make a “custom version of its Alexa voice-recognition software” to do this, but the team working on it was laid off during a huge round of layoffs in 2022, writes The Telegraph. Alas.
“Imagine!” Coppola beams. “You could see Megalopolis five times in its opening week and it would be different each time! It would have been the future of the movies and ancient theatre rolled into one!”
Coppola apparently almost completely abandoned the idea, when Driver suggested preserving one of those responses to answer a pre-determined question from an usher. Most of us won’t see it in our local theaters, but it will happen in “some cinemas for its UK release,” according to The Telegraph. It also played out at some Megalopolis festival screenings. Here’s an abridged version of Vogue’s recounting of one such event.
Somewhere in the middle of the film, as Driver’s Cesar is speaking to camera, the screen briefly went blank. There was a confused smattering of applause from those who thought it was all over—if only we’d been so lucky—but then, with the lights still down, a man ran onto the stage in front of the cinema screen from the wings, holding a long microphone.
…Positioning himself on one side of the stage, and now lit by a spotlight, the man then faced Driver, now back on screen, and asked him a question, as if participating in some strange pandemic-era Zoom press conference. Driver answered, and the man then rushed off stage again. It was so odd, and felt so completely pointless, that I didn’t know how to respond.
Megalopolis is in theaters now. Be sure to read Andrew Webster’s Verge review before you grab tickets.
