Shia LaBeouf in a scene from the new behind-the-scenes documentary "Megadoc."
"Megalopolis" actor Shia LaBeouf, left, gives a frustrated Francis Ford Coppola his ideas for a scene.
Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver, right) dances with love interest Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) in a sequence from the 2024 movie "Megalopolis."

Whether or not you’ve seen “Megalopolis,” you'll be riveted by this fly-on-the-wall look into the film's behind-the-scenes tensions.

“Megadoc” captures the doomed production of Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed sci-fi epic, which was ravaged by critics last fall and earned just $7.6 million at the U.S. box office on a reported $136 million budget.

“Am I bankrupting my family on some crazy thing?” Coppola, 86, asks at one point during the documentary (in theaters Sept. 19), which offers a minute-by-minute window into rehearsals and filming. The audacious “Megalopolis” is set in a modern version of ancient Rome, starring Adam Driver as an idealistic architect who clashes with a corrupt mayor (Giancarlo Esposito) and his stooges (Jason Schwartzman and Dustin Hoffman).

Some of the documentary’s candid footage is quite charming, like Aubrey Plaza hamming it up behind the scenes or Coppola toasting his 60th wedding anniversary on the set with his wife, Eleanor, who died last year.

But what’s most gripping are the spats between Coppola and Shia LaBeouf, 39, who has spent the past decade embroiled in a series of high-profile controversies, including allegations of sexual battery by ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs. (After five years, she dropped the lawsuit in July.)

“I have the least job security of all the actors in this,” LaBeouf acknowledges, later telling costar Jon Voight that “I’m worried about getting fired all the time. I’m serious. Every day, I think I’m out of here.”

Documentary director Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”) drops in on multiple instances of LaBeouf attempting to suggest new pieces of blocking and dialogue to Coppola. The “Transformers” star insists that he needs to be “looser” and improvise and that Coppola’s precise direction is inhibiting his performance.

“What are we inventing a whole step for?” Coppola laments during one such exchange. “Where did that come from? Who was the director who came in here and started to stage the scene?”

When LaBeouf acknowledges that Coppola is “obviously” the director, the five-time Oscar winner retorts, “But I’m not having a chance to.”

Their chats gradually become more heated as LaBeouf routinely offers up suggestions and complaints while Coppola tries to keep the costly shoot on schedule. “Shia, you’re full of s---,” Coppola tells him angrily. “I’m not going to talk to you. You are wrong. I’ve been doing this for 50 years.” Moments later, we overhear the men yelling at each other.

“I walked in here with reverence,” LaBeouf tells Figgis. “But I found that not to be an effective way to work with him.”

As production on “Megalopolis” neared its finish, Coppola began to hide out in his editing bay, which was housed in an Airstream RV dubbed the “Silverfish.”

“He drove me nuts, but his performance is great – and I’ll say it’s great,” Coppola says. “But I was in the Silverfish saying, ‘I’m not even going to deal with him.’ ”

By the end, “our communication has become so blunt, there’s no more cutesy-pie diplomacy,” LaBeouf says. “We’re at the end of our rope. He’s exhausted. He says, ‘I have one regret on this (project). I say, ‘OK, what’s the one regret?’ He says, ‘You.’ ”

Coppola went on to tell him he was “the biggest pain in my f------ ass of any actor I’ve ever worked with,” LeBeouf recalls. “I said, ‘Really? Really? You’re just being dramatic.’ ”

Throughout filming, Coppola says he felt both “very depressed and very elated.” He condemns the media for treating the movie's production like “open season to speculate about my craziness.” And he often expresses frustration with the "Megalopolis" creative team, who work slower than he'd like and don't fully grasp his vision for the project. But Figgis keeps the documentary balanced, allowing the cast and crew to share their own takes on Coppola's exacting and overly ambitious process.

The legendary filmmaker ends "Megadoc" on a hopeful note, saying he wants to continue taking big swings with however many movies he has left.

“Whatever it is,” Coppola says, “I’m going to be having fun.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Francis Ford Coppola's NSFW rant about Shia LaBeouf's behavior on set

Reporting by Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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