Lionsgate has parted ways with marketing consultant Eddie Egan, who created a trailer for “Megalopolis” that featured fake quotes from famous film critics.
The studio pulled the trailer on Wednesday after it was pointed out that a scathing remark about director Francis Ford Coppola's previous film didn't actually appear in critic reviews and was therefore fabricated.
Variety's sources say that Lionsgate or Egan did not fabricate the quotes, but rather made a mistake in properly vetting and fact-checking the phrases provided by consultants. The trailer's intention was to show that Coppola's respected work was subject to criticism in the same way as “Megalopolis.” AI appears to have been used to generate the fake quotes from critics.
For example, the trailer claims that Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker that The Godfather was “debased by its artistry,” even though Kael actually loved the film.
When Variety asked the AI service ChatGPT to provide negative reviews of Coppola's films from prominent critics, the responses it provided were strikingly similar to quotes included in the trailers.
Egan has worked closely with Lionsgate Film Group Chairman Adam Fogelson for more than 20 years. The two worked together at Universal and then STX. Fogelson served as chairman of Universal Pictures until 2013, when he became chairman of STX Film Group. Fogelson was hired as vice chairman of Lionsgate Film Group two years ago and was named chairman in January.
Egan left STX in 2019 and has been working as an independent consultant since.
“Lionsgate is withdrawing the trailer for 'Megalopolis,' effective immediately,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved, Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for the unforgivable error in our review process. We failed, and we are sorry.”
A Lionsgate spokesman declined to comment on the report, and Egan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
