8 APOCALYPSE NOW
War and used Conrad’s story of a white trader’s mad exploits in Africa as the tem-
plate for an allegory about Amer i ca in Vietnam. Milius finished a first draft on 5
December 1969, but the controversial nature of the Vietnam War delayed pro-
duction for several years, during which Milius wrote nine more drafts and
changed the title from “The Psychedelic Soldier” to “Apocalypse Now” (a mock-
ing reference to the hippie slogan, “Nirvana Now”). In the spring of 1974, Cop-
pola undertook pre- production in earnest. By the latter months of 1975 he had
finished a revised version of Milius’s script. He would continue to revise through-
out the shoot, ultimately using Werner Herzog’s conquistador epic Aguirre, the
Wrath of God (1972) and Michael Herr’s bestselling Vietnam War memoir, Dis-
patches (1977), as additional sources of inspiration. After the resounding success
of The Godfather, Parts I (1972) and II (1974), Coppola managed to secure financ-
ing from United Artists and distributors in the amount of $15.5 million— a mod-
est bud get for a complex, large- scale proj ect. He scouted locations in New Zealand
but fi nally opted to shoot the film in the Philippines, where labor was cheap and
President Ferdinand Marcos could be counted on to supply military equipment,
especially he li cop ters.Production
Apocalypse Now is legendary for having a protracted and chaotic production his-
tory. At the outset, Francis Ford Coppola strug gled to cast the role of Capt.Martin Sheen as Capt. Benjamin L. Willard (left) and Frederic Forrest as Engineman
3rd Class Jay “Chef” Hicks as they venture into the stronghold of renegade Col. Walter E.
Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando, not pictured) in a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s
Apocalypse Now (1979). (United Artists/Photofest)