No one wanted to make this film: eight directors refused this masterpiece of cinema

This year marks 52 years since The Godfather hit our screens, a film that will probably remain on the list of the most famous in the history of cinema until the end of time. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and adapted from Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name. godfather Not only is it an absolute icon of gangster cinema, but it is one of the greatest films ever made, and its influence on the film industry and pop culture today cannot be overstated.

However, while Paramount Pictures executives quickly realized they needed to acquire the rights to adapt Puzo’s work, finding a director behind the cameras for this ambitious project was nearly impossible.

It’s hard to believe today, I know what godfather means Coppola’s career and his place in history, but in the early 70s there were not one, not two, but eight directors who turned down a studio offer to make a film.

Published in 1969, Puzo’s novel was a bestseller, but Paramount noticed it before it was even published, and in 1967 offered the author $12,500, a sum that would rise to $80,000 if he was given the green light to make a movie. .

Eight rejections in a row

In 1970, the project was officially launched, but the first task of producer Robert Evans was to find the ideal director: he was initially rejected by Sergio Leone. The Italian director seemed perfect for the job, partly because of his nationality and partly because Paramount had already worked with him on his previous film, but the filmmaker had another mobster film in mind, Once Upon a Time in the West, which was considered. Failure has already become one of the greatest films of all time.

After Leone, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Yates, Richard Brooks, Arthur Penny, Franklin J. Schaffner, Costa-Gavras and Otto Preminger also refused. godfatherfor various reasons.

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Eventually, Paramount got in touch Francis Ford Coppola, also of Italian descent, and paid him a little more than $100,000 for the work — because he wasn’t yet the filmmaker we know today. The young man was only 31 years old at that time, and although he had already shot his first feature films, he already knew what he wanted: and he didn’t want to be a director. godfather !

“Half the book is about this lady who has this gynecological problem, and this guy was going to do the surgery, and then he fell in love. I thought it was very scary and I wanted to be more of an artist“, he admitted Francis Ford Coppola on the Howard Stern Show in 2009, according to statements collected by Far Out magazine.

When the film was in production, Coppola knew how uncertain the film’s success was. He continued: “There have been several mafia movies before and all of them failed. That’s why all the great directors refused them. They finally decided to do a very low budget project. I was also a screenwriter, so they thought he would earn free rewrites from me.“

George Lucas to the rescue

And his suspicions were justified when he received the script and recalled: “I thought the plot was really rough. I didn’t want to do it because I wrote the script for the movie Secret conversation And I was trying to get money for it. This is George Lucas Who told me I had to do this because we needed to make money.“

In the end, as he had predicted, Coppola had to rewrite the script several times, clashing with the studio at every turn – especially over casting. By refusing to work with big names in film, he became Paramount’s public enemy number one.

“It was reported that I was fired every week. They didn’t like my casting because I had new actors that nobody had heard of. The studio wanted someone named Robert Redford to play Michael Corleone“, he added.

• ‘I wasn’t Italian enough for them’: Sylvester Stallone turned down for The Godfather

It is ultimately by staying true to his ideas Francis Ford Coppola Made one of the best movies of all time. You know the rest: commercial and critical success, three Oscars (including Best Picture), two sequels, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino (and others) in the lead, and an established career for a director who never regrets saying yes.

“it changed my life”he said on the 50th anniversary of Puzo’s book (via Entertainment Weekly ). This is true.

The Godfather Trilogy is currently streaming on Prime Video.