How Francis Ford Coppola Really Lost So Much Of His Money

Francis Ford Coppola, the director who shaped the "The Godfather" franchise, has lost a large chunk of his money. He used to be worth well over $100 million, but his net worth doesn't exactly match up to his historic, cinematic contributions. Celebrity Net Worth states that Coppola is worth $5 million today. However, the director claims that his situation is much bleaker than that, as he's now broke due to the financial failure that was 2024's "Megalopolis," which he poured most of his fortune into. Coppola made the admission in comments to The New York Times when discussing the expensive watches he was selling to recoup some of his funds. "I need to get some money to keep the ship afloat," he explained.

Unfortunately, "some money" is an understatement for Coppola. The Los Angeles Times reported that "Megalopolis," which starred Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Shia LaBeouf, and more, had a budget of $120 million, but was only projected to bring in about $4 million upon its release. Fortunately for Coppola, "Megalopolis" did slightly better than the L.A. Times' projection, recouping about $12 million of its budget. 

However, the movie still pushed the director into a steep financial deficit, which forced him to part with some of his most precious items — including his fancy watch collection. The NY Times estimated one piece to be worth around $1 million on its own. So, though Coppola is only scraping by now, he could very well become one of the celebs who went broke but became rich again. After all, he's done it before.

Francis Ford Coppola may currently be poorer than fans realized, but it's not like he's not used to gambling with his massive fortune in the name of his art. As The New York Times noted, his 1982 musical romance "One From The Heart" was another financial (and critical) failure, which forced him to file bankruptcy after abysmal ticket sales amounted to just under $638,000 against a $26 million budget. And it was all for a passion project that wasn't even made to his exacting standards. "If you ask me what I would do differently in my life, there is only one thing I would do different. ... Three weeks before we shot that movie, I should not have given in to my cinematographer, who didn't want to shoot with 16 cameras, and do it like live television," he shared with The A.V. Club (via Far Out Magazine). Sounds expensive.

Coppola's poor isn't the average person's poor, given one avenue he's used to get out of debt is to let go of his private island. Yes, really. According to The Independent, he was forced to hand over the lease to Coral Caye, the scenic island located in Belize, which had been in his possession for nearly a decade. The sale prompted some interesting reactions from fans of the director — mostly those shocked at how little the island, which someone was able to scoop up for $1.8 million, was worth. "My big takeaway from this is that you can buy an entire island in Belize for the price of a 3 bedroom condo in LA," commented one user on Reddit. Meanwhile, another user suggested the community could've pooled their money together to buy the island.