By: ISDA Staff

Filming of The Godfather was truly a saga as director and writer, Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, fought against the creative direction routinely offered up by Paramount studio executives.

Some battles Coppola won, like with the casting of Al Pacino (the studio wanted Jack Nicholson to play Michael Corleone).

But according to the filmmaker, his and Puzo’s vision was lost when Paramount took control of the 1990 trilogy finale.

The new version, titled “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone” is due out this December and will feature a new beginning and ending, with scenes and shots shuffled around in between.

“‘Mario Puzo’s The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone’ is an acknowledgement of Mario’s and my preferred title and our original intentions for what became ‘The Godfather: Part III’ … With these changes and the restored footage and sound, to me, it is a more appropriate conclusion to ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Godfather: Part II’ and I’m thankful to Jim Gianopulos and Paramount for allowing me to revisit it,” Coppola said to Variety.

Coppola and his production company American Zoetrope worked from a 4K scan of the original negative to undertake a frame-by-frame restoration of the new version and the original “The Godfather: Part III.”