Francis Ford Coppola is many issues. He is a author, producer, and director. He is gained 5 Academy Awards and helped outline the fashionable period of filmmaking. He is made a number of the most vital motion pictures in cinematic historical past, together with “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Half II,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Dialog,” “The Outsiders,” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
He based the impartial studio American Zoetrope, which produced groundbreaking movies for a technology of visionary administrators. Past movie, he has constructed a wide-ranging enterprise empire that has included vineyards, luxurious resorts, eating places, olive oil, pasta, cigars, and even a literary journal.
He is additionally… a gambler.
Not within the seedy Vegas sense of the phrase. Francis Ford Coppola gambles along with his artwork. He bets every part—his fortune, his popularity, his consolation—for the possibility to make one thing nice. All through his profession, he has repeatedly gone all-in on ardour initiatives that few others would dare to finance. Generally these dangers have paid off spectacularly, producing movies that modified cinema eternally. Different instances, they’ve left him staring down chapter.
And as soon as once more, Francis Ford Coppola is feeling the load of a chance that didn’t go his method, rendering him “broke” and compelled to unload a priceless watch assortment simply to maintain meals on the desk…
Francis Ford Coppola / Jason Merritt/Getty Photographs
Earlier than “The Godfather”
Earlier than Francis Ford Coppola turned some of the celebrated filmmakers of all time, he was a struggling younger director making an attempt to recuperate from a collection of disappointments. Within the late Sixties, Coppola had all of the credentials of a rising auteur. He had earned his grasp’s diploma at UCLA’s movie faculty, labored beneath Roger Corman, and directed a handful of small movies that confirmed promise. However his early studio initiatives hadn’t gone as deliberate. His 1968 musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” starring Fred Astaire, flopped on the field workplace, and his follow-up, “The Rain Individuals,” although artistically formidable, earned robust evaluations however little cash.
At that time, Coppola’s profession was hanging by a thread. He had simply based American Zoetrope with George Lucas, envisioning it as a haven for impartial filmmakers who needed to flee the grip of Hollywood studios. However Zoetrope’s first undertaking, Lucas’s “THX-1138,” bombed commercially and left the fledgling firm deep in debt. Coppola was broke, in debt to Warner Bros., and determined to search out work. That is when Paramount Footage got here calling with a proposal to direct an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s crime novel, “The Godfather.”
At first, Coppola hated the ebook, calling it “sleazy” and beneath his inventive ambitions. However with payments piling up and his firm on the brink, he reluctantly agreed to take the job—hoping it could purchase him sufficient time to maintain his struggling studio alive.
As everyone knows, “The Godfather” turned some of the profitable and acclaimed movies ever made, incomes Coppola three Oscars and remodeling him from a struggling director into some of the highly effective figures in Hollywood.
Playing Man
The success of “The Godfather” and its sequel gave Francis the liberty to chase his inventive ambitions with out restraint. Within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, he relocated his operations to San Francisco and launched Zoetrope Studios, a daring try and create a filmmaker-run studio the place administrators may make motion pictures free from Hollywood’s management. It was an idealistic imaginative and prescient—half artist colony, half film manufacturing unit—and it turned the centerpiece of Coppola’s subsequent nice gamble.
Below the Zoetrope banner, Coppola self-financed a collection of formidable initiatives, together with “The Dialog” and “Apocalypse Now.” Each earned large essential acclaim, however “Apocalypse Now” was a monetary nightmare. The manufacturing was stricken by delays, typhoons, on-set chaos, and ballooning prices. Coppola mortgaged his dwelling, borrowed in opposition to his future earnings, and poured his private fortune into conserving the movie alive. When it lastly premiered in 1979, it was hailed as a masterpiece and went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes—however it left Coppola emotionally and financially exhausted.
His subsequent gamble proved way more damaging. In 1982, Coppola wrote, directed, and financed “One from the Coronary heart,” a neon-lit Las Vegas musical that value $25 million to make and earned barely $1 million on the field workplace. The failure crippled Zoetrope Studios and triggered a decade-long spiral of debt and litigation. Between 1983 and 1992, Coppola filed for chapter 3 times—personally and thru his firms. In his 1992 filing, he listed $98 million in liabilities in opposition to $53 million in belongings.
To remain solvent, Coppola spent a lot of the Eighties and early Nineties as a “director for rent,” taking up industrial initiatives like “Peggy Sue Bought Married,” “The Outsiders,” “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” and “The Rainmaker.” These weren’t his grand inventive statements—however they paid the payments, stored Zoetrope alive, and allowed him to slowly dig himself out of chapter. Satirically, these pragmatic selections—made out of monetary necessity—helped protect the artistic independence that may later outline his second act as a winemaker and entrepreneur.
Wine, Restoration, and Reinvention
In 1975, nonetheless using excessive from the success of “The Godfather Half II,” he and his spouse, Eleanor, started searching for a household retreat in Napa Valley. What they discovered was excess of a summer season dwelling. Utilizing earnings from “The Godfather,” Coppola bought the historic Niebaum Property for $2.2 million — a dilapidated remnant of the once-great Inglenook Vineyard, which had fallen into company neglect. On the time, Coppola knew virtually nothing about winemaking, however he noticed the potential to revive a chunk of California’s cultural historical past.
When “Apocalypse Now” pushed him into monetary misery within the late Nineteen Seventies and “One from the Coronary heart” bankrupted him within the early Eighties, the winery turned each a burden and a lifeline. He could not afford to promote it, and he could not afford to let it fail. So Coppola realized the enterprise from the bottom up, releasing his first classic — “Rubicon” — in 1978. It took almost a decade earlier than it reached shops. Within the meantime, he was residing modestly, taking directing jobs like “Peggy Sue Bought Married” and “The Outsiders” simply to pay for grape harvests and payroll.
His monetary comeback lastly arrived within the early Nineties. The box-office success of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” gave him the sources to purchase the remaining items of the Inglenook property — together with its legendary chateau and entrance vineyards — for the primary time in over a century. With that buy, he turned a authentic vintner. The Niebaum-Coppola Property started producing critically acclaimed wines, and Coppola launched his “Francis Ford Coppola Presents” model, together with the reasonably priced Diamond Assortment, which turned an enormous industrial hit.
By the late 2000s, his empire had expanded far past movie and wine. He owned resorts in Central America, a lodge in Italy, a number of eating places, and a life-style model that offered every part from olive oil and pasta to cigars and effective spirits. The person who as soon as owed almost $100 million had reinvented himself as a multi-industry entrepreneur — a Hollywood legend who discovered monetary redemption within the artwork of wine.
However for Francis Ford Coppola, consolation by no means lasts lengthy. Many years after playing his fortune on “Apocalypse Now” and “One from the Coronary heart,” he would as soon as once more danger every part on one ultimate dream undertaking — a movie known as “Megalopolis.”
$120 Million “Megalopolis” Gamble
For many years, “Megalopolis” had been Francis Ford Coppola’s final ardour undertaking — a futuristic epic he first conceived within the early Eighties a couple of visionary architect making an attempt to rebuild New York Metropolis after a catastrophe. He had written dozens of drafts over time, hoping sooner or later to deliver it to life. However the 9/11 assaults made the premise — a metropolis in ruins — really feel too near actuality, and the undertaking languished for 20 years. Nonetheless, Coppola by no means stopped dreaming about it.
By the early 2020s, his winemaking and hospitality companies had made him rich once more. He determined to lastly use that success to finance the movie himself. He offered off two of his Bay Space wineries as a part of an effort to lift $100 million to make Megalopolis precisely as he imagined it — with out studio interference, with out compromise, and fully beneath his artistic management. The ultimate funds reached an estimated $120 million, almost all of it coming from Coppola’s personal fortune.
Manufacturing started in 2023 and was instantly beset by issues. Crew members stop, union complaints surfaced, and stories emerged of erratic on-set habits. The movie’s early advertising and marketing was equally chaotic: a mysterious, AI-generated trailer appeared on-line utilizing fabricated critic quotes, sparking backlash earlier than the film even premiered.
When Megalopolis lastly debuted in theaters on September 27, 2024, it was met with scathing evaluations and disastrous field workplace numbers. Regardless of its A-list forged — together with Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Aubrey Plaza, and Laurence Fishburne — the movie earned simply $14 million worldwide.
“I Dont Have Any Cash…”
At his monetary peak, Francis Ford Coppola’s net worth was effectively over $100 million — maybe nearer to $200 million when factoring within the worth of his wineries, actual property, movie catalog, royalties, and life-style model. However his $120 million self-financed gamble on “Megalopolis” wiped almost all of that away.
In March 2025, throughout an look on Rick Rubin’s “Tetragrammaton” podcast, Francis spoke candidly concerning the fallout and his monetary issues:
“I haven’t got any cash as a result of I invested all the cash, that I borrowed, to make ‘Megalopolis. It is principally gone.”
To lift cash, this week Coppola introduced that on December 6, he’ll public sale off seven watches from his private assortment. The watches vary in estimated worth from $3,000 to $1 million, and embody uncommon items by Patek Philippe, Blancpain, Breguet, and IWC.
On the middle of the sale is a one-of-a-kind F.P. Journe FFC Prototype — a watch Coppola personally helped design in 2014 in collaboration with Swiss grasp watchmaker François-Paul Journe. The piece, which encompasses a mechanical hand that tells time via transferring fingers, initially retailed for about $1 million and will fetch way more at public sale. Coppola described it as “too costly to insure” and stated he had worn it solely a handful of instances.
Additionally up on the market are two further F.P. Journe watches valued between $120,000 and $240,000, together with a Patek Philippe Calatrava, a World Time, a Blancpain Minute Repeater, a Breguet Classique, and an IWC Chronograph.
A Life Outlined by Threat
Francis Ford Coppola’s story is considered one of artwork, obsession, and relentless reinvention. Few filmmakers have reached the heights he has — and even fewer have been keen to danger a lot to get there. Over six many years, he has constructed and misplaced fortunes a number of instances, betting every part on his imaginative and prescient of what cinema could possibly be. He could also be down immediately, however Francis Ford Coppola, the gambler, isn’t out.
