Francis Ford Coppola's discarded plans for The Godfather Part 4

On the DVD commentary for Godfather 3, Coppola spoke about what a fourth movie would have been like. He said that he had actually started working on a script with Mario Puzo. It was going to have a similar structure to Godfather 2. There was one story that focused on Vincent, and took place during the 80's and 90's. The rise of cocaine was going to play a part. This was meant to show how corrupt the family had gotten since Vito was so opposed to drugs back in the day.

The second story would take place in the 1930's and would focus on Sonny, Vincent's father. This was meant to contrast the "golden age" of the Corleone family, with the decline of the family in Vincent's time. Coppola wanted Andy Garcia and Talia Shire back, and also wanted Robert De Niro to reprise the role of Vito Corleone. Apparently they were also considering Leonardo DiCaprio to play Sonny.

Coppola said that the scene from Godfather 3 with Michael on the bench at the end was going to be incorporated into the film. Michael would meet Vincent and give him some advice, and then die shortly after. This was meant to mirror the scene from the first movie where Vito gave Michael advice and then died shortly after. The end of the movie was apparently going to feature Vincent being hunted down and killed, which would be the demise of the family.

Coppola said that he had finished the 1930's portion of the script, but Puzo died before he could write the rest. Coppola didn't want to finish it without Puzo, so he scrapped the project. Here's a link for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather_(film_series)#Fourth_film

So what do people think of this? Could it have been better than Godfather 3? Would anyone want to see it?

Submitted April 15, 2018 at 03:57PM by Lapse77 https://ift.tt/2JOu0ea