Francis Ford Coppola was met with gasps and groans for a prediction he made about the upcoming presidential election.

The filmmaker participated in a question-and-answer session with friends and collaborators Robert De Niro and Spike Lee on September 24 before a screening of “Megalopolis” at the New York Film Festival, which was streamed live from AMC Lincoln Square in New York to 65 IMAX theaters across the United States.

Speaking to Dennis Lim, artistic director of the New York Film Festival, the trio shared memories of their friendship before Coppola went into detail about how “Megalopolis” can be seen as a metaphor for the fall of Rome – and explained why he believes America is on the same path.

“My films are a little bit prescient, they refer to the future,” Coppola said, noting that when “The Conversation” came out, people asked him, “Why are you making a film about wiretapping?” And then shortly afterward, the Watergate tapes came to light.

“And people always said, ‘Why do you want to make a movie about America as Rome?'” Coppola continued. “Um, today America is Rome. And we’re going to have the same experience for the same reasons that Rome lost its republic and eventually got an emperor.”

The author added: “Perhaps it is very prescient to make this film, a film about America, because the action will take place in a few months.”

Coppola has clearly put a lot of thought into this, and in Megalopolis, Shia LaBeouf even becomes a villainous Trump-like figure who tries to harness the anger of populists for his own ends. The film is set in an allegorical version of New York City called New Rome, and in fact, at one point there is even a hat with the words “Make New Rome Great Again” on it.

“And it was for the same reason,” Coppola said, speaking of where America is now and where Rome is now. “Rome was so wealthy, Rome was making a lot of money. So the senators were very interested in their own power and their own wealth. And they were not running the country. Well, the same thing happened here. Our Senate and our representatives are manipulating their own power instead of running the country. And we are in danger of losing it.”

You could hear the crowd gasping on the live stream (as well as in person in Tampa, where this writer was watching the stream), and so Spike Lee immediately cracked a joke to lighten the mood?

“Did they eat cats and dogs in Rome?” Lee joked, referring to Trump’s outrageous and offensive remarks about immigrants made during the second 2024 presidential debate against Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Coppola took the opportunity after Lee’s joke to talk about how shameful he finds the recent demonization of Haitians and Haitian immigrants in the U.S., as he did in a recent Instagram post, and praised a Haitian film he supports called “Freda” by director Gessica Geneus.

De Niro, one of Trump’s most vocal critics, hinted that he does not consider the existence of an emperor to be a foregone conclusion at this point in time – about 40 days before the election.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” De Niro said. “And we have to go at it with all our hearts to beat the Republicans — those Republicans are not real Republicans. Let’s beat Trump. It’s as simple as that. We can’t have people like that in office in this world. It’s as simple as that. Everyone has to go out and vote. And we have to make it very clear what America is. It’s not what this other thing is. It’s just not that. It’s just not what we’re about. And everyone knows that. Even people who are doing wrong know that.”

For this writer, Megalopolis is ultimately a film about how we approach the future and how we imagine it. Coppola is clear that America must face that future united. That’s why he even made certain casting choices, such as Trump supporter Jon Voight, who plays banking magnate Crassus in the film.

“I intentionally brought people in who disagreed with me to do this,” Coppola said. “I mean, there are actors in the film who are moving in a different direction, and there are people who were canceled, no matter what. And we in the film are all working together. Together. Happily and creatively. It shows that we… I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, this is a woke movie that’s just a political thing.’ We’re above politics in making the film, I thought. And yet we all liked each other and made this film together. So I’m confident that even when people disagree with us, we can still work for a higher purpose.”

De Niro replied to Coppola: “Can you imagine Donald Trump directing this movie? He would never get anything done. That would be utter insanity. He can’t do anything. He can’t bring anything together. He wants to destroy the country. And he couldn’t make this movie. He couldn’t make anything that had any structure.”

And if Trump, who starred in Home Alone 2 and later became US president, is not even capable of leading the cast of a film, how is he supposed to unite a nation?

Coppola rounded things off with a funny anecdote about the former president.

“Did you know I went to military school with Donald Trump?” the filmmaker said. “I went to military school with Donald Trump. We went to the same military academy. Not at the same time. I was a little older… But I was poor. So I was a tuba player in the band. And he was rich. So he was at headquarters where they could keep the lights on after 10 p.m.”

And that was probably the last time Coppola and Trump were on common ground (literally).

“Megalopolis” will be released in theaters on September 28th.