#Francis Ford Coppola Used A Mafia Move To Escape Getting Fired From The Godfather

To survive the production of “The Godfather,” Coppola ultimately took a cue from the move that Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) pulls during the film’s famous baptism montage. Instead of having mob hitmen assassinate all his rivals, he simply set about terminating the employment of anyone who sought to undermine him to Paramount. As he puts it:

“I just immediately fired all the people who were in my team who were lobbying to get me out. I went up there and shot the scene [with Brando] a second time, and saved myself, basically, by firing all the people who were working to fire me. It was very much like that: it was touch-and-go the whole production. There was the perception that I had some power. But I really had no power at all.”

While tension behind the scenes can sometimes help filmmakers produce great work, Coppola managed to helm the greatest movie sequel of all time under less precarious circumstances, job-wise. His favorite movie to film was actually “The Godfather Part II,” and of that, he says:

“A lot of people have the theory that you do your best work when you’re under tension. I don’t think so. The Godfather Part II, I had a lot of power, and it was a bigger, more complicated and difficult film to do, and there was no one firing me because I was then powerful. I was the boss. That was one of the smoothest productions I ever worked on.”

“The Godfather” will begin its 50th-anniversary engagement in select theaters on February 25, 2022, followed by a new 4K box set and digital release on March 22, 2022.