Francis Ford Coppola Set for El Rey's THE DIRECTOR'S CHAIR, 3/2

EL REY NETWORK Founder and Chairman, Robert Rodriguez sits down with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola for a new installment of "El Rey Network Presents: The Director's Chair," a series of hour-long specials featuring the industry's most creative storytellers engaging in a revealing and unexpected exchange about the world of filmmaking. Immediately following "The Director's Chair" at 8:00pm ET/8:30pm PT EL REY NETWORK will air Coppola's The Conversation at 9:00pm ET/9:30 PT.

"El Rey Network Presents: The Director's Chair"

Monday, March 2 at 8:00pm

In this candid and insightful interview, Rodriguez and Coppola discuss Coppola's epic career tracing his early filmmaking inspirations back to childhood. Never before has a filmmaker in the history of the medium had a streak of masterpiece-level films that Francis Ford Coppola enjoyed between The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking auteurs that anointed kingly status to the director, Coppola was able to work within the studio system though not without his own challenges. In the interview, Coppola discusses his surprising reluctance to do both The Godfather and The Godfather: Part IIas well as providing new insight into the well documented struggles on Apocalypse Now, which resulted in arguably the greatest war film of all time.

The Conversation

Monday, March 2 at 9:00pm

Coppola, who believes in making "one film for them and one film for me," made this film featuring a paranoid, secretive surveillance expert in between The Godfather and The Godfather: Part 2. One of the great 70s-era paranoia thrillers, The Conversation stars Gene Hackman and features John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr and Robert Duvall. The psychological thriller revolving around the moral dilemma a surveillance expert faces when his recordings reveal a potential murder was written, produced and directed by Coppola. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for three Academy Awards. The film lost the top prize to Coppola's The Godfather: Part II at the 1974 Academy Awards, marking the only time in history that a single person credited as producer & director had two films in the Best Picture category.

"El Rey Network Presents: The Director's Chair" is a series of hour-long specials featuring the industry's most cutting edge directors as they engage in a revealing and unexpected exchange about the world of filmmaking. The series provides access to one-on-one interviews between Rodriguez and some of cinema's most iconic filmmakers.

"El Rey Network Presents: The Director's Chair" is produced for EL REY NETWORK by Troublemaker Studios and Skip Film in association with FactoryMade Ventures. Executive producers are Robert Rodriguez, Skip Chaisson, John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa.

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