Lionsgate has taken down the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's ambitious film Megalopolis after critics noticed that it included fabricated quotes. The trailer that appeared on Wednesday included quotes that were supposed to be from prestigious critics like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, which panned the director's earlier work. It said that Kael panned The Godfather as "diminished by its artsiness" and Sarris dismissed it as a "sloppy self-indulgent movie." But neither of these remarks appeared in the actual reviews.

The trailer also misattributed a quote from Roger Ebert, who supposedly called Bram Stoker's Dracula "a triumph of style over substance." Actually, he used that in his review for the 1989 film Batman. In fact, Ebert's review for Dracula was very positive regarding the exuberance of the film: "The movie is an exercise in feverish excess, and for that if for little else, I enjoyed it."

Among the mainstream media, the falsehood that Daily News critic Rex Reed had called Apocalypse Now "an epic piece of trash" also spread, despite the fact that Reed never used those words. By that time, the studio, Lionsgate, had finally registered the mistakes and decided to withdraw the trailer. The company issued an apology in which it expressed its deepest regrets, admitted the error, and publicly apologized to the critics, as well as to Coppola's staff. "Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis," the company stated. "We apologize sincerely to the critics involved as well as Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable mistake in our vetting process." They added, "We screwed up. We are sorry."

Owen Gleiberman of Variety, also featured in the trailer, came out with guns blazing against the quote misuse. "Even if you're one of those people who don't like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths," he said. Gleiberman added that the phony storyline of the trailer actually undermines the authenticity of the movie.

Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wrote in to ask what the justification was for the use of fake blurbs, when Coppola's movies are always highly divisive. "Yes, Coppola has built a career on films that perplex some critics and audiences when they first come out but are eventually revealed to be visionary works of art," Ebiri said. "And yes, Megalopolis will be a polarizing movie." He continued, adding that it was often an act of cinematic bravery to put the critics at loggerheads with a movie, but quoting reviews did nothing to mend the strained relations between the studios and the critical community.

Megalopolis first screened at the Cannes Film Festival and, again, the reviews were mixed. Hitting theaters next September and playing across the U.S., Adam Driver will portray Cesar — an artist-inventer envisioning a utopian city that clashes with the city's mayor, played by Giancarlo Esposito. Also in the cast are Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, and Dustin Hoffman.

In a review, The Independent's Geoffrey Macnab gave Megalopolis three stars, calling it "deeply flawed and very eccentric." According to Macnab, the production history of this film has been troubled, with Coppola trying to raise funds for it over the years. "It was as if the Hollywood executives were looking for payback for all those past occasions when Coppola had criticized their way of doing business or when he had taken their money and produced a box-office turkey," commented Macnab; it wasn't the first time Coppola had flopped financially, with One from the Heart back in 1981, and more recently with Tucker: The Man and His Dream in 1988.

In addition, Coppola has had accusations of inappropriate behavior while on set, which are rumored to entail some in which he was making passes at female extras. He has denied the allegations, stating that he has always conducted himself with respect and is not "touchy-feely."