Over the past three decades Sofia Coppola been an indelible filmmaking voice, from her feature debut The Virgin Suicides, right up her 2017 take on The Beguiled, via Lost In Translation, The Bling Ring, and more. And while the Coronavirus pandemic is currently causing havoc on upcoming film slates, it seems that Coppola’s next film On The Rocks hasn’t been hit too hard by the unfolding health crisis. The film, written and directed by Coppola, sees the filmmaker reunite once again with Bill Murray, who plays the father to Rashida Jones’ Laura in a New York-set adventure.
Speaking to Empire in a career-spanning joint interview with her regular creative collaborator Kirsten Dunst (who sadly doesn’t appear in On The Rocks), Coppola confirmed that she managed to finish the film just before the Covid-19 pandemic geared up. “We finished post-production a week before everything got shut down,” she confirmed – though that’s not to say that the film doesn’t play differently in a post-Coronavirus world. “It’s weird, because we were watching it during our sound mix. Bill Murray and Rashida Jones play father and daughter and everybody’s shaking hands in it and I was like, ‘Argh!’ It’s so weird to look at it through the filter of right now. There’s a part where Bill gives her a hard time for washing her hands so much and I was like, ‘Oh my God, we need to cut this out!’ It’s weird looking at something that was made last summer and now it’s a whole different world.”
On The Rocks doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, but is expected to arrive on Apple TV+ later in 2020. Read Empire’s full interview with Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst in the Celebration Of Cinema issue – talking The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and The Beguiled, their filmmaking shorthand, and their experiences breaking rules and moving through decades of moviemaking together.
The magazine hits newsstands on Thursday 14 May, and is available to order online here. Alternatively, read the digital edition on the Empire Magazine app on iOS and Android.