The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American epic gangster film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from the screenplay co-written with Mario Puzo. The film stars Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Andy Garcia, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna, Bridget Fonda, George Hamilton and Sofia Coppola. It is the sequel to The Godfather Part II (1974) and the final installment of The Godfather trilogy. The film concludes the fictional story of Michael Corleone, the patriarch of the Corleone family, who attempts to legitimize his criminal empire. It also includes fictionalized accounts of two real-life events: the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I and the Papal banking scandal of 1981–1982, both linked to Michael Corleone's business affairs.
Although Coppola initially refused to return for a third film, he eventually signed to direct and write Part III. In his audio commentary for Part II, Coppola stated that only a dire financial situation, caused by the failure of his 1982 musical fantasy One from the Heart, compelled him to take up Paramount's long-standing offer to make a third installment. Coppola and Puzo wanted the title to be The Death of Michael Corleone, for they felt that the first two films had told the complete Corleone saga, so Part III would serve as the epilogue, but Paramount Pictures thought that that title was unacceptable.
Winona Ryder was initially cast in the role of Michael Corleone's daughter Mary, but eventually left production due to other commitments and nervous exhaustion. The role was ultimately given to Coppola's daughter Sofia, a decision that garnered much criticism and accusations of nepotism. Principal photography took place from late 1989 to early 1990, with filming locations in both Italy and the United States.
The Godfather Part III premiered in Beverly Hills on December 20, 1990, and was widely released in the United States on December 25. The film received mostly positive reviews, although it was considered inferior to the previous films and a disappointing conclusion to the trilogy. Critics praised Pacino's and Garcia's performances, as well as Coppola's direction, cinematography, editing, and production design, but criticized the plot and Sofia Coppola's performance. It grossed $136.8 million worldwide, and garnered seven nominations at the 63rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Garcia). It also received seven nominations at the 48th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Pacino).
In December 2020, a recut version of the film, titled The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, was released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original version. Coppola called this version closer to his original vision for the film, and it received warmer reviews from critics.
Plot
In 1979, Michael Corleone is approaching 60 years of age. Plagued with guilt over his ruthless rise to power, especially for having ordered his brother Fredo Corleone's murder, he donates millions to charitable causes.
Michael and Kay Adams are divorced; their children Anthony and Mary live with Kay. At a reception in Michael's honor at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral that follows a papal order induction ceremony, Anthony tells his father that he is leaving law school to become an opera singer. Kay supports Anthony's decision, while Michael eventually agrees to let him go his own way. Kay reveals to Michael that she and Anthony know the truth about Fredo's death.
Vincent Mancini, the illegitimate son of Michael's long-dead older brother Sonny by his mistress Lucy Mancini, arrives at the reception. Michael's sister Connie arranges for Vincent to settle a dispute with his rival Joey Zasa, but Zasa calls Vincent a bastard, and Vincent bites Zasa's ear. Michael, troubled by Vincent's temper yet impressed by his loyalty, agrees to include Vincent in the family business.
The head of the Vatican Bank, Archbishop Gilday, has accumulated a massive deficit of $769 million. Michael offers $600 million in exchange for the Vatican's shares in an international real estate company, Internazionale Immobiliare, which would give him a controlling interest. Immobiliare's board approves the offer, pending ratification by Pope Paul VI.
Don Altobello, a New York Mafia boss and Connie's godfather, tells Michael that his partners on The Commission want to be involved with the Immobiliare deal. However, wanting finally to become legitimate, Michael pays them his sold Las Vegas holdings instead. Zasa receives nothing and, declaring Michael to be his enemy, storms out. Don Altobello, assuring Michael that he can diplomatically resolve the matter, leaves to speak to Zasa.
Moments later, a helicopter hovers outside the conference room and opens fire. Most of the mafia's bosses are killed, but Michael, Vincent, and Michael's bodyguard Al Neri escape. Michael realizes that Altobello is the traitor, but suffers a diabetic stroke before he can act. As Michael recuperates, Vincent and Mary begin a romance, while Neri and Connie permit Vincent to retaliate against Zasa. During a street festival, Vincent kills Zasa. Michael berates Vincent for his actions and insists that Vincent end his relationship with Mary because it is dangerous and they are first cousins.
The family goes to Sicily for Anthony's operatic debut in Palermo at the Teatro Massimo. While Michael and Kay tour Sicily, Michael asks for Kay's forgiveness, and they admit that they still love each other. Michael visits Cardinal Lamberto, anticipated to become the next pope, to discuss the deal. Lamberto persuades Michael to make his first confession in 30 years, during which Michael tearfully confesses that he ordered Fredo's murder. Lamberto says that Michael deserves to suffer for his sins, but can be redeemed. He gives him sacramental absolution.
Michael tells Vincent to pretend to defect from the Corleone family to spy on Altobello. Altobello introduces Vincent to Licio Lucchesi, Immobiliare’s chairman. As a result, Michael learns from Vincent that the Immobiliare deal is an elaborate swindle, arranged by Lucchesi, Gilday and the Vatican City's accountant Frederick Keinszig, and that Altobello has hired someone in Sicily to assassinate Michael. Mosca, the veteran hitman who was hired, kills the Corleone family's friend Don Tommasino upon recognizing Mosca in his priest disguise. At Tommasino's funeral, Michael vows to sin no more. Following the pope's death, Cardinal Lamberto is elected to succeed him, choosing as his name Pope John Paul I. Subsequently, the Immobiliare deal is ratified.
Gilday kills the new pope with poisoned tea. Michael names Vincent the new Don of the Corleone family in return for ending his romance with Mary. The family sees Anthony's performance in Cavalleria rusticana in Palermo while Vincent exacts his revenge. Keinszig is killed, and his murder is staged as a suicide; Connie poisons Altobello via a birthday cannoli and watches him die from the opera box; Calò, Tommasino's former bodyguard, kills Lucchesi; and Neri travels to the Vatican, where he shoots and kills Gilday.
At the opera house during Anthony's performance, Mosca overcomes two of Vincent's men but is unable to get an opportunity to kill Michael. As they leave after the show at the opera house, Mosca shoots at Michael, wounding him; a second bullet hits Mary, killing her. Vincent shoots and kills Mosca. Michael cradles Mary's body and screams in agony and horror.
Seventeen years later, a depressed and elderly Michael, sitting alone in the courtyard of Don Tommasino's villa, suffers a stroke. He slumps over and falls to the ground, dead.
Cast
Production
Writing Francis Ford Coppola felt that The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) had told the complete Michael Corleone saga, and did not want to make another installment in The Godfather film series. Paramount Pictures nevertheless spent years trying to make another sequel set in the 1970s with another director. Studio chiefs attempted to write a story with one by Gulf + Western founder and ultimate owner of Paramount, Charles Bludhorn, and studio president Michael Eisner also writing a treatment in which the Central Intelligence Agency would team up with the Mafia to assassinate a Costa Rican dictator, while Alexander Jacobs wrote a screenplay in which Michael Corleone's son Anthony would inherit his father's crime family.
In 1978, the studio hired Mario Puzo to write a story treatment for $250,000. This was expanded into a 1979 screenplay by Dean Riesner, which would have combined the two concepts by having Anthony Corleone as a CIA agent responsible for assassinating the dictator and then taking over the Corleone crime family. Bluhdorn offered Richard Brooks the chance to direct the film, but he declined.
John Travolta and Eric Roberts were hired as Anthony Corleone. Production on this story did not move forward, and in 1982, Vincent Patrick wrote a new screenplay in which Michael Corleone and Tom Hagen would have been killed in the opening scene, and would have focused on the first film's protagonists' child. It was not produced after director Dan Curtis quit.
In 1985, Nick Marino and Thomas Lee Wright submitted a screenplay called The Godfather: The Family Continues featuring a gang war between the Corleones and the Irish Mafia in Atlantic City, but it was rejected by the studio's new president Frank Mancuso Sr. because he believed that it did not portray the Corleones sympathetically enough. Marino and Wright later sought Writers Guild of America arbitration to receive a story credit on the final film, but were denied.
In 1985, development of The Godfather Part III stalled because the cast of the first two films demanded more money to reprise their roles and because Paramount Pictures decided that a third film could not be made without Coppola's involvement. The studio had previously considered Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, Warren Beatty, Michael Cimino, and Sylvester Stallone (who was also attached to star). Motion picture head Ned Tanen favored Andrei Konchalovsky. That year, Coppola began considering returning to the franchise because of a dire financial situation, initially caused by the failures of One from the Heart (1982) and The Cotton Club (1984).
The Cotton Club's producer Robert Evans, who also collaborated with Coppola on the first film, tried unsuccessfully to produce another Godfather film without Coppola's involvement. In 1988, after Puzo and Nicholas Gage wrote another draft, Paramount president Frank Mancuso convinced Coppola to sign a deal to direct and write The Godfather Part III for $6 million and a share of the film's profits.
In May 1989, Coppola and Puzo completed their final draft of the screenplay. It included almost none of the elements in the scripts proposed over the previous 12 years, except for a home-invasion scene from the original Reisner script that survived in almost its original form. Coppola intended Part III to be an epilogue to the first two films, and was also inspired by William Shakespeare's King Lear. Coppola and Puzo preferred the title The Death of Michael Corleone, but Paramount Pictures found it to be unacceptable. By the time of filming, the script had been redrafted 12 times.
Casting Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire reprised their roles from the first two films. Pacino's deal was finalized in August 1989, which led to the film being given the greenlight. According to Coppola's audio commentary in the film in The Godfather DVD Collection, Robert Duvall refused to take part unless he was paid a salary comparable to the $6 million earned by Pacino in the previous film. In 2004, on the CBS program 60 Minutes, Duvall said, "If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that's fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did."