Los Angeles, May 13 (IANS): Superstar director and five times Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola has locked the star cast of his upcoming film 'Megalopolis'.

The film is set to star Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne.

Fishburne began his career with Coppola at the tender age of 14 in 'Apocalypse Now', reports 'Deadline'.

'The Godfather' maker is returning to direction eleven years after his last film, the horror movie 'Twixt' which was panned by critics.

As per 'Deadline', 'Megalopolis', happens to be Coppola's dream project that has been in the making for over two decades.

Coppola, who is also a wine entrepreneur, is directing the independently-financed film from his own script.

He describes the contemporary drama as the fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicted love.

The budget will be just under $100 million, and production begins this fall. Distribution rights are being brokered by attorney Barry Hirsch.

The director believes that the films of his that stand up best over time, are the ones that seemed riskiest when he made them. This one he puts closest to 'Apocalypse Now', a film many believed would ruin him as he was making it.

Coppola wound up owning it because nobody else would give him the money, and it has poured off a fortune over the years.

The 83-year old filmmaker has lofty aspirations for 'Megalopolis', but his goal is not profits or accolades, but rather something he can leave behind for future generations that reflect his optimism for the potential mankind has, even as social media, polarised politics and many other things have some fearing a kind of fall of the Roman Empire. He sold a piece of his wine empire to make it possible to get the credit line to do this.