LOS ANGELES (AP) — Francis Ford Coppola has sued Variety, saying that a July story that said he ran an unprofessional set with impunity and touching and tried to kiss female extras during the production of his film “Megalopolis” was false and libelous.
The suit, which seeks at least $15 million from the entertainment trade publication, was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, two weeks before the director’s long-dreamed-of and self-financed epic is to be released in U.S. theaters.
The suit calls the 85-year-old director of “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” a “creative genius” and says others are “jealous” and therefore tell “knowing and reckless falsehoods.”
It says Variety’s “writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production, Megalopolis, of…