In the late 1960s, inspired by Heart of Darkness and encouraged by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Milius became interested in writing a Vietnam War film. He had read the novel when he was a teenager and was reminded about it by one of his college lecturers who had mentioned the several unsuccessful attempts to adapt it into a movie. He wanted to use Conrad's novel as "a sort of allegory. It would have been too simple to have followed the book completely." Milius wrote ten drafts, amounting to over a thousand pages, and changed the title from The Psychedelic Soldier to Apocalypse Now. He was influenced by the article The Battle for Khe Sanh written by Michael Herr, which referred to drugs, rock 'n' roll, and people calling airstrikes down on themselves, and Dr. Strangelove (1964). Milius felt that Lucas was the right person to direct. Lucas worked with him for four years developing the film. Lucas approached the script as a black comedy, and intended to shoot the film after THX 1138 (1971). Location scouts began in the Philippines, Vietnam and California. Lucas envisioned the film to be shot on a $2 million budget cinéma vérité style, using 16 mm cameras, and real soldiers, while the war was still going on. However, due to Warner Bros' concerns, the failure of THX 1138, and Lucas' involvement with American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977), the project was ultimately shelved. In the early 1970s, Coppola expressed interest and eventually decided to take on the project. He envisioned the film as a definitive statement on the nature of modern war, the difference between good and evil, and the impact of American society on the rest of the world.
In 1975, Coppola began scouting locations in northern Queensland, Australia, but ultimately settled on the Philippines. Coppola revised the script with Milius and began negotiated with United Artists to secure financing. In early 1976, Coppola had persuaded Marlon Brando to play Kurtz for an enormous fee of $3.5 million. Coppola then secured a $15.5 million budget with Marlon Brando and Harvey Keitel attached to star. Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, G. D. Spradlin, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper rounded out the cast. In early March 1976, principal photography commenced for a five month shoot. Filming took place in Manila and Iba, and was plagued with problems. Firstly, within a few days, Coppola was dissatisfied with Keitel, and ultimately replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen. In late May, Typhoon Olga hit the sets in Iba, and the production was closed down. This resulted in the shoot being six weeks behind schedule and $2 million over budget, with most of the cast and crew returning to the United States for six to eight weeks until issues were resolved. Coppola had to offer his car, house, Napa Valley winery, and The Godfather profits as security to finish the film. Afterwards, Brando arrived in Manila very overweight and completely unprepared. Coppola began working with Brando to shoot around his weight gain and rewrite the ending. In early 1977, production resumed. In early March, Sheen suffered a heart attack, and struggled for a quarter of a mile to reach help, but returned to work in late April. During the interim, his brother Joe Estevez filled in for him and provided voice overs needed for his character. In late May, a problematic sixteen-month production, principal photography finally wrapped.
Problems continued after production as Coppola edited a million-two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand feet / two-hundred-and-thirty hours of film. In January 1978, Herr was asked to work on the film's narration due to Coppola's dissatisfaction of the original narration. In May, Coppola postponed the opening until Spiring 1979. In April 1979, "a work in progress" was screen to a lukewarm reception. That same year, he was invited to screen the film at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite objections from United Artists, Coppola agreed to screen the film. On May 10, 1979, the incomplete film premiered at Cannes to a lukewarm reception, but was honoured with the Palme d'Or. On August 15, 1979, the film was released. The film was a commercial success, grossing $78 million domestically and over $150 million worldwide. The initial reviews were mixed. Today the film is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards at the 52nd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and went on to win for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". An extended cut of the film was released in 2001 as Apocalypse Now Redux. Redux restores forty-nine minutes cut from the original cut. For the 40th anniversary, the film was restored in spectacular 4K resolution personally supervised by Coppola. The Final Cut has a runtime of three hours and two minutes, with Coppola having cut 20 minutes of the added material from Redux. It is also the first time the film has been restored from the original camera negative. In April 2019, the film screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The film stars Brando, Sheen, Duvall, Forrest, Hall, Bottoms, Fishburne Hopper, Spradlin, and Ford. Tour de force performances were given by the cast, especially Brando and Sheen, who both personified the film's theme of descent into madness.
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