The movie is about the personal, political, and romantic clashes that arise during a battle to construct an American utopia, and it was shaped in part by the speculative prophecy of H.G. Wells, a murderous conspiracy from ancient Roman history, the devastation of the September 11 attacks, and the outsize influence of attractive cable news hosts, among a litany of other inspirations. “To that, I added everything I had ever read or learned about,” Coppola says in a statement. Read more from Vanity Fair here.