MOVIE NEWS – Francis Ford Coppola reportedly offered to do The Godfather 4 for free, with Leonardo DiCaprio part of the package. The studio did not view it as a good idea, and the proposal quietly died. Here is how we missed out on another Godfather movie.
It has been 54 years since the premiere of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola’s hugely influential mafia masterpiece, and it still has a hold on us. Not only because of what sits inside the trilogy’s first film – the director’s favorite scene, the backstory of the soundtrack, Marlon Brando’s working methods, the key decisions that refined the script, or anecdotes like the improvised moment with Vito Corleone’s cat – but also because of what never came to fruition. Today, I want to revisit the fact that this iconic trilogy nearly received a fourth installment and look at why it never became real.
What could have been, but wasn’t
In fact, Francis Ford Coppola and writer Mario Puzo talked the idea through in depth, and they even agreed it would mirror the structure of The Godfather Part II by running across two timelines. Put simply, it would have operated as both a sequel and a prequel to the saga at the same time. On one side, we would have watched Vito and “Sonny” Corleone climb higher and higher in the 1930s, and on the other, we would have followed Vincent Corleone leading the family business in the 1980s as everything slowly turns from bad to worse over a decade. That downward arc would have ended with the Corleones becoming deeply entangled in the drug trade, the very thing the family had tried to avoid at all costs until then.
The plan was ambitious. The expectation was that Robert De Niro (young Vito Corleone), Al Pacino (Michael Corleone), Andy Garcia (Vincent Mancini), and Talia Shire (Connie Corleone) would return to the roles they played in the Godfather trilogy, and among the major new additions, Leonardo DiCaprio was seen as a near-certain pick to play a younger Santino “Sonny” Corleone, originally portrayed by James Caan. Years later, García said the Titanic star was the perfect age to play Sonny at the time and added that he would be willing to work with Coppola again. “I’m fine with it if it never happens, but I’m ready if it does,” the actor said.
The Godfather IV project bounced around Paramount for several years, but studio executives never truly embraced it, which is why Francis Ford Coppola eventually lost interest after Mario Puzo died in 1999. Andy Garcia confirmed that the writer’s death ultimately sank the project, even if Coppola did not sound especially hopeful anyway, and in 2012 he put it like this: “Mario knew he was sick and wanted to leave some money for his children.” “So I said to Paramount, give Mario a million dollars to write it and I’ll work with him for free.” “At that time, Paramount had a very low-budget mentality and they didn’t accept.”
However, some of the ideas once considered for The Godfather 4 ended up being used in a book, The Corleone Family, published in 2021 by Ed Falco with permission from Puzo’s family. That release is when talk of a possible fourth installment resurfaced, kicking off a legal battle between Paramount and Puzo’s heirs. A settlement outside of court followed shortly afterward, and the studio still keeps open the possibility of making more films tied to the Corleone franchise, but for now there appear to be no concrete plans to do so.
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