The first victim of the controversy surrounding the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Megalopolis”, which involved the use of fake quotes from famous film critics, is Eddie Egan.

According to Variety, Lionsgate has parted ways with the veteran marketing consultant who created the trailer with the fake quotes.

What’s even more interesting is that the fabricated quotes are AI-generated and most likely created by a chatbot like ChatGPT.

Variety conducted their own experiments and even asked ChatGPT to send them negative quotes from well-known critics about Coppola’s films “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” and claimed that the results were extremely similar to what was seen in the trailer.

The studio had previously pulled the trailer on Wednesday after it was previously reported that the quotes attacking Coppola’s previous work did not appear in the reviews and turned out to be fabricated.

Pauline Kael is said to have written in the New Yorker that “The Godfather” was “diminished by its artistry,” but that Kael was enthusiastic about the film.

Sources told Variety that Egan and Lionsgate did not falsify the quotes, but that an error occurred during careful review and verification of the consultant’s wording.

The intention of the trailer was to show that Coppola’s films were misunderstood and “ahead of their time,” even when compared to his most revered works.

Critics of “Megalopolis” are divided: some love it, others hate it.

Egan has worked closely with Adam Fogelson, chairman of the Lionsgate film group, for more than 20 years, as the two worked together at Universal and later at STX. Fogelson served as chairman of Universal Pictures until 2013 and then chairman of the STX film group. In 2022, he was hired as vice chairman of the Lionsgate film group and was named chairman in January, Variety reported.

Since leaving STX in 2019, Egan has served as an independent consultant.