'Megalopolis' Trailer Opens With Negative Reviews Of Classic Francis Ford Coppola Movies, Which Are Not Real And May Have Been Generated By ChatGPT

Yesterday, a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis dropped that presented an interesting opening gambit: The trailer showcases negative reviews purportedly written about some of Coppola's most famous movies at the time of their release, including pans of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The pitch acknowledges that critics are likely to pan Megalopolis when it hits theaters, but asserts that, just as with other beloved Coppola classics, the critics will ultimately be proven wrong and Megalopolis will walk among cinema giants for years to come.

Unfortunately, there is one rather significant issue with this gambit — none of the critical quotes presented in the trailer about The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker's Dracula are genuine. They're all made up.

Vulture's Bilge Ebiri appears to be the first to have printed that the quotes presented in the trailer are fake. To do this, he underwent some great, journalistic detective work — and by that we mean he simply read the reviews "quoted" in the trailer.

For example, Ebiri notes the Megalopolis trailer "quotes" famed film critic Pauline Kael saying The Godfather is "diminished by its artsiness." That quote does not appear in her review. In fact, Kael lauded praise on The Godfather, writing, "This is a bicentennial picture that doesn’t insult the intelligence. It’s an epic vision of the corruption of America."

Similarly, Roger Ebert didn't call Bram Stoker's Dracula "a triumph of style over substance." He instead said that about 1989's Batman.

So, what happened here? As of now, we don't know how Megalopolis distributor Lionsgate came up with multiple fake quotes attributed to some of cinema history's most famous critics, though the company has issued an apology and pulled the trailer from its YouTube page (it's still available elsewhere).

However, internet detectives have a strong hunch about how Lionsgate grabbed those fake quotes. They believe the company quite literally generated them out of thin air using AI.

Mike Isaac, a tech reporter for the New York Times, plugged the prompt "negative film critic quotes about The Godfather" into ChatGPT and received some of the negative "quotes" that appear in the trailer.

Asking ChatGPT where it got those quotes resulted in the AI saying it had basically rewritten some common criticisms of The Godfather in the voice of those critics, since their reviews of The Godfather aren't available online.

Though the use of AI has not been confirmed by Lionsgate, it seems to many this is the most plausible theory about why the Megalopolis trailer features quotes that do not exist.

Both film lovers and AI critics found it amusing that, once again, ChatGPT has (supposedly) resulted in a major "oopsie."

Judging from the buzz around Megalopolis, it's likely future film critics will not need to use an AI generator to invent negative quotes about the film.