After her acclaimed breakout with 1999’s “The Virgin Suicides” and riding high on many best-of-year lists in 2003 with “Lost in Translation,” anticipation for Sofia Coppola’s next film was sky high.
What was delivered was 2006’s “Marie Antoinette,” a highly stylised punk interpretation of the life of the queen in the years leading to the French Revolution.
The Kirsten Dunst-led film debuted at an infamous Cannes premiere before releasing to polarised and divisive reviews over its loose portrayal of real historical events along with several creative decisions.
Combined with earning $60.9 million off a $40 million budget, the movie was considered something of a high-profile flop at the time, even as it has been reappraised a bit by critics in the years since.
Nearly twenty years later Coppola, speaking about the film’s legacy, acknowledged to Vanity Fair it was a flop but is happy that it has subsequently found an audience:
“I’m always happy that I get to make what I want to make. I was happy we got to make that movie, but nobody saw it […] It was a flop. So the fact that it’s lived on and people talk about it has been really satisfying because so much work went into it. It makes me happy that now it’s kind of found its way and people enjoy it.”
In the years since, Coppola has directed “Somewhere,” “The Bling Ring,” “The Beguiled” and “On the Rocks”. The comments come as Coppola’s newest film, “Priscilla,” has been selected as the Centerpiece film of the upcoming New York Film Festival.
