One of the most successful films in the world almost failed to come into existence! The 1972 classic really wasn’t an easy film to make, and when you see all the hurdles it had to get over, you will simply have to watch it again!
The Godfather was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three. It had a $6 million budget, and it made $101 million within 18 weeks of release. It was the first movie ever to make a million dollars per day. It also made stars of actors no one heard of before. But, it was an extremely difficult film to make.
At the beginning
Paramount hated everything about The Godfather until they saw Michael Corleone put bullets in the head and throat of a police captain – ending up with brains all over his ivy league suit.
The studio disliked the actors, the setting, the tunes, the director, and the tone. The studio even hated the logo with puppet strings that S.Neil Fujita, a graphic designer, had made for the book.
At first, Paramount Pictures thought they could make a quick and cheap gangster movie, so they bought the rights to Mario Puzo’s novel after they seeing only the first 60 pages. Puzo planned for The Godfather to be a quick fix sellout book after The Fortunate Pilgrim failed to bring any cash even though it was critically acclaimed.In the end, the studio paid $80.000 for the rights. Interesting fact – they beat Burt Lancaster, who had hoped to play Don Vito Corleone, to the rights in a bidding war.
The first hiccup
Nobody expected this book to become a hit, and yet it did just that. The Godfather had everybody’s interest, and because of that, stayed on top of The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks, and sold over 9 million copies in only two years. This is where the first problem appeared. Because the book was such a success, the studio started reconsidering making it into a movie, because they were worried that it wouldn’t live up to the expectations. Vice president Peter Bart realized that this book was more than just a Mafia story, so he approved it.
Coppola was the studio’s last choice
Paramount production wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Their first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was preparing his own gangster movie Once Upon A Time In America. After that, Paramount offered it to Peter Bogdanovich who wasn’t interested in mafia. After him came Peter Yates, Arthur Penn, Costa-Gavras, Richard Brooks, Elia Kazan, Otto Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, Richard Lester and Franklin J Schaffner before the studio opted for Coppola. He agreed to work for a low salary and on a low budget. So, he got the job in 1970 for $125,000.
Another plus was the fact that Coppola had a vowel at the end of his name, so they were able to promote the film as the first Italian mob drama made by Italians.
The Mafia was not happy with the film
Some Italians were offended by the idea of this movie and The Italian-American Civil Rights League demanded that the words “mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” get removed from the script, and that all the money the movie made at its premiere gets donated to their fund for the building of a new hospital.
This was mostly because some of the scenes we all know from the film were based on actual Mafia-related events. The head of the biggest Mafia family at the time, Joseph Colombo did everything he could to stop the movie from being made. There were threats to the lives of Paramount’s executives, so the studio agreed to meet with this boss, and they gave in to some of his demands.
After that, gangsters started showing up on the set to meet the cast, and the shooting started.
Problems with the lead
Paramount had interesting ideas about who should be Vito Corleone, and it was anyone but Marlon Brando. They talked to Orson Welles, Anthony Quinn, Paul Scofield, Victor Mature, Richard Conte, George C. Scott, Jean Gabin, and even Laurence Olivier. Puzo was not happy with this development, so he sent a letter to Brando telling he was “the only actor who can play the Godfather”
Brando was tricked by Coppola into doing a screen test for Paramount president Stanley Jaffe, during which he stuck cotton balls into his cheeks, put shoe polish in his hair and rolled his collar. So, in the end, he loved the role so much, that he agreed to do the movie for free, and even put up a personal bond to ensure the studio against losses.
That never stopped him from playing pranks on other cast members and the crew. Also, Brando read from cue cards during most of the film and imitated the speech of a mob boss Frank Costello.
Actors for other roles were no easier to find. Coppola was under a lot of pressure from his family, from the studio as well as one crime boss. Most of the actors were the last choice for the casting director Fred Ross, and they got their parts because they agreed to do the movie for less money.
Coppola was almost kicked off the set
Paramount constantly undermined Coppola during the filming. They thought the film was shot too dark, that it was too introspective and talky. They threatened to fire Coppola but Brando and Pacino threatened to quit if the director was taken off the project, and that saved him. all until the Sollozzo scene was shot, the studio had Elia Kazan on standby.
For a long time, The Godfather was the highest-grossing film ever made. Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and Caan were nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscars. Coppola got the Best Director nomination. Brando won the Oscar for Best Actor, and Puzo and Coppola won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, while the movie itself got the Academy Award for the Best Picture.
And to think that this classic almost wasn’t – wow!