Gambling on his passion project in a big way by pouring millions of his own money into it, Francis Ford Coppola announced in May that he had secured Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Voight to head up the cast. Aubrey Plaza will now be joining them.
While the roles are still largely unknown (with two exceptions: see below), Coppola has said the plot is loosely this: "The fate of Rome haunts a modern world unable to solve its own social problems in this epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicting interests."
Talking to Deadline when the other cast were announced, Coppola explained a little more: "The concept of the film is a Roman epic, in the traditional Cecile B. DeMille or Ben-Hur way, but told as a modern counterpart focusing on America," he said. "It’s based on The Catiline Conspiracy, which comes to us from ancient Rome. This was a famous duel between a patrician, Catiline (Driver), and the famous Cicero, who will be Forest Whitaker. He is now the beleaguered mayor of New York, during a financial crisis, close to the one that Mayor Dinkins had. This story takes place in a new Rome, a Roman epic sent in modern times. The time set is not a specific year in modern New York, it’s an impression of modern New York, which I call New Rome."
With the budget currently a hair under $100 million, shooting should be kicking off in the coming months. And Plaza's casting gives us hope that it's still on track this time.