Francis Ford Coppola prefers to sell his collection of watches rather than give in to streaming

The story begins with a crazy project, Megalopolis (2024), self-produced and self-financed to the tune of approximately $120 million, for a modest box office result of barely $14 million. A Roman epic transposed to a futuristic and fallen America, it evokes two contradictory and irreconcilable worldviews. Extravagant, monumental, ambitious, megalomaniacal—hyperbole flourished around Francis Ford Coppola's film (his testament?), for which he had already mortgaged part of his Napa Valley vineyard. Francis Ford Coppola ruined? And so, the godfather of contemporary cinema is forced to sell part of his personal collection of luxury watches, which will undoubtedly thrill connoisseurs: the FFC Prototype watch, custom-designed with the renowned Swiss watchmaker FP Journe. A unique watch, featuring an innovative mechanism where an articulated hand indicates the hours, estimated at over one million dollars. Other pieces include two Patek Philippes, another FP Journe, a Blancpain Minute Repeater, a Breguet Classique, and an IWC Chronograph, with estimates ranging from $3,000 to $240,000. For the love of art. A sad and beautiful piece of news: even if you're Francis Ford Coppola, a cinematic legend, have already proven yourself and contributed significantly to the world of cinema, you can still weather enormous storms for the love of art. The price of independence and his absolute refusal to succumb to the allure of streaming platforms to replenish his coffers, arguing that many of his films have proven profitable in the long run, Apocalypse Now chief among them, and that his science-fiction epic with its extravagant sets absolutely must be seen in theaters. The auction will take place at Phillips Auction House, a specialist in watch sales, in New York on December 6 and 7, 2025. Virtually bankrupt, Francis Ford Coppola is nevertheless already working on an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel The Glimpses of the Moon.