Francis Ford Coppola, the acclaimed American director of "The Godfather" movies and "Apocalypse Now," underwent a non-emergency medical procedure by appointment at a hospital in Rome and is doing fine, he and a US-based representative said on Tuesday.
"Mr. Coppola went in for a scheduled update procedure with acclaimed Dr. Andrea Natale, his doctor of over 30 years, and is resting nicely," the representative said in response to Italian media reports that the director was hospitalized. "All is well."
The 86-year-old filmmaker was admitted on Tuesday to the Policlinico Tor Vergata, a public hospital in the Italian capital, news agency ANSA reported.
The US-based representative declined to give any details about the nature of Coppola's medical procedure, but said: "There was not an emergency. He went to the hospital in a car."
Coppola himself posted a photograph of himself on Instagram appearing relaxed and smiling with a message reassuring fans, "I am well."
"Da Dada (what my kids call me) is fine, taking an opportunity while in Rome to do the update of my 30-year-old afib procedure with its inventor, a great Italian doctor - Dr. Andrea Natalie," it said. He did not elaborate further.
His US representative specifically disputed as "not true" a report from the Italian website repubblica.it that Coppola had suffered atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat, before entering the operating room for what was to have been a long-planned surgical procedure.
A spokesperson for the hospital did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Coppola was in Italy to promote his latest movie, the sci-fi epic "Megalopolis," a $120 million self-funded production about a visionary architect's quest to transform a fictional future version of New York City called New Rome into a utopian community.
The film, which has drawn mixed reviews and struggled at the box office following its 2024 debut at the Cannes Film Festival, was reported to have received a special screening at the Magna Graecia Film Festival in Catanzaro, Italy.
The Italian-American director, who has won five Academy Awards, four of them for his work on the first two films in "The Godfather" trilogy, widely considered by cinema buffs to rank among the greatest movies of all time.
