Francis Ford Coppola Compares Fall of Rome to Current American Politics: “Lost Its Republic and Ended Up With an Emperor”

> Francis Ford Coppola got political while discussing his new film Megalopolis on Monday, suggesting that the upcoming presidential election may mirror the downfall of Rome.

> “People always said to me, ‘Why do you want to make a movie about America as Rome?’ Well, today, America is Rome, and they’re about to go through the same experience, for the same reasons that Rome lost its republic and ended up with an emperor. It was very prescient to do a movie about America as Rome because it’s going to happen in a few months,” Coppola declared. “And it was the same reason; the Rome of that time was so prosperous, Rome is making lots of money so the senators were actually very interested in their power and their own wealth, and they weren’t managing the country. Well the same thing has happened here. Our senates and our representatives are all wealthy and manipulating their own power rather than running the country and then we’re in danger of losing it.”