Francis Ford Coppola wants an offer he can't refuse: his watches.
The Academy Award-winning director is selling seven watches from his personal collection, including his custom FP Journe FFC prototype, which is estimated to sell for more than $1 million, according to a statement from Phillips, the New York City-based auction house. Phillips will hold the auction on December 6 and 7.
The sale could help offset losses from last year's box office flop “Megalopolis,” which cost more than $120 million to make and was largely financed by the 86-year-old director. The film grossed only $14.3 million worldwide.
The film, Coppola's first since his 2011 horror film “Twixt,” premiered at Cannes last year to largely negative reviews. Joshua Rothkopf of the Times called it a “wildly ambitious and overcrowded urban epic.”
At a press conference in Cannes, Coppola spoke of the enormous amount of his own money he had invested in the film, saying that he “never cared about money” and that his children “don't need a fortune.”
Coppola's watches also up for auction include examples from Patek Philippe, Blancpain and IWC.
But the centerpiece is the FP Journe FFC prototype that features a black titanium human hand resembling a steampunk glove that articulates the hours as the fingers extend or retract.
Francis Ford Coppola's custom FP Journe FFC watch uses a single hand to indicate 12 hours.
(Phillips)
The watch was a collaboration between Coppola and master watchmaker François-Paul Journe that began after a conversation the pair had during a visit to the filmmaker's Inglenook winery in Napa Valley in 2012.
Coppola asked Journe if a human hand had ever been used to keep time. That question sparked a years-long conversation during which the watchmaker debated how to indicate the 12 hours on the dial with just five fingers.
Journe found his inspiration in Ambroise Paré, a 16th-century French barber-surgeon and an innovator of prosthetics in particular, including Le Petit Lorrain, a prosthetic hand made of iron and leather that featured hidden gears and springs that allowed the fingers to move, not unlike the mechanism of a watch.
“Talking to Francis in 2012 and hearing his idea about using a human hand to tell time inspired me to create a watch I could never have imagined. The challenge was formidable – exactly the kind of watchmaking project I adore,” Journe said in a statement.
Journe eventually created six prototypes and delivered the watch to Coppola in 2021.
“I am proud to fully support the sale of this watch through Phillips to fund the creation of his artistic masterpieces in film,” he said.
Coppola first became interested in the watchmaker when he gave his wife Eleanor an FP Journe Chronomètre à Résonance in platinum with a white gold dial for Christmas 2009, prompting the director to invite Journe to visit him at his Napa winery.
Eleanor Coppola, documentary filmmaker and writer, died in 2024 after 61 years of marriage. His FP Journe watch is also part of the auction and is estimated to fetch between $120,000 and $240,000.
