After filming Apocalypse Now, Coppola famously stated: " We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.

Coppola has stated that Part III was originally planned to feature a split between Michael and Hagen as its central plot, as seeds of dissension were planted in the first two films.

Coppola stated in the film's commentary that Duvall demanded the same salary as Al Pacino ( who portrayed Michael Corleone ).

Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather ( 1972 ).

Coppola followed it with a critically successful sequel, The Godfather Part II ( 1974 ), which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

However, Coppola had to face a lot of difficulties while filming The Godfather.

Coppola shot The Godfather Part II parallel to The Conversation.

According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title, as the audience would supposedly believe that, having already seen The Godfather, there was little reason to see an addition to the original story.

Following the success of The Godfather, The Conversation and The Godfather Part II, Coppola began filming Apocalypse Now, an adaptation of Conrad ’ s Heart of Darkness set in Cambodia during the Vietnam War ( Coppola himself briefly appears as a TV news director ).

A biopic based on the life of Preston Tucker and his attempt to produce and market the Tucker ' 48, Coppola had originally conceived the project as a musical with Marlon Brando after the release of The Godfather Part II.

The debt nearly closed Zoetrope, and forced Coppola to ( reluctantly ) focus on The Godfather.

In the film The Godfather ( Coppola 1972 ), POV is used extensively, especially during the opening scene when Don Corleone is listening to requests from wedding guests.

Most trilogies are works of fiction involving the same characters or setting, such as The Deptford Trilogy of novels by Robertson Davies or The Godfather films of Francis Ford Coppola, " " The Shiva Trilogy " by Amish Tripathi.

Francis Ford Coppola deliberately incorporated elements of Lear in his 1990 sequel The Godfather Part III, including Michael Corleone's attempt to retire from crime throwing his domain into anarchy, and most obviously the death of his daughter in his arms.

It lost Best Picture to The Godfather Part II, another Francis Ford Coppola film.

Murch had more or less a free hand during the editing process, since Coppola was already working on The Godfather Part II at the time.

The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American crime epic that Francis Ford Coppola produced, directed, and co-wrote with Mario Puzo, starring Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Robert De Niro.

Coppola created The Godfather Saga expressly for American television in a 1975 release that combined The Godfather and The Godfather Part II with unused footage from those two films in a chronological telling that, because it toned down the violent, sexual, and profane material, received a rating of TV-14 for its NBC debut on November 18, 1977.

Coppola returned to the film again in 1992 when he updated that release with footage from The Godfather Part III and more unreleased material.

The Godfather DVD Collection was released on October 9, 2001 in a package that contained all three films — each with a commentary track by Coppola — and a bonus disc that featured a 73-minute documentary from 1991 entitled The Godfather Family: A Look Inside and other miscellany about the film: the additional scenes originally contained in The Godfather Saga ; Francis Coppola's Notebook ( a look inside a notebook the director kept with him at all times during the production of the film ); rehearsal footage ; a promotional featurette from 1971 ; and video segments on Gordon Willis's cinematography, Nino Rota's and Carmine Coppola's music, the director, the locations and Mario Puzo's screenplays.

In the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film ( released in 2002 ), Coppola states that this film was the first major motion picture to use " Part II " in its title.

Coppola discusses his decision to make this the first major motion picture to use " Part II " in its title in the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film released in 2002.

The restoration was confirmed by Francis Ford Coppola during a question-and-answer session for The Godfather Part III, when he said that he had just seen the new transfer and it was " terrific ".

Between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Coppola directed The Conversation, released in 1974 and also nominated for Best Picture.

The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American crime film written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola.

Coppola states that The Godfather series is in fact two films, and Part III is the epilogue.

The careers of Sofia Coppola, Nicolas Cage, and Jason Schwartzman have been attributed to aid by director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast his daughter Sofia in The Godfather Part III.

* The Godfather Part II ( 1974 ) ( directed by Francis Ford Coppola )

* The Godfather Part III ( 1990 ) ( directed by Francis Ford Coppola )

Brown's flamboyant style made him so well known as the consummate politician that when an actor playing a party politician in 1990's The Godfather Part III did not understand director Francis Ford Coppola's instruction to model his character after Brown, Coppola fired the actor and hired Brown himself to play the role.

He is also the main character of the Godfather film trilogy that was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, in which he was portrayed by Al Pacino, who was twice nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal ( Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather, and Best Actor for The Godfather Part II ).

The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d ' Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family of Italian ancestry ( his paternal grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata ).

His parents were Italia ( née Pennino ) and Carmine Coppola, who was the first flautist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

He was the second of three children ( his older brother was August Coppola and younger sister is actress Talia Shire ).

While pursuing his bachelor's degree, Coppola was elected president of The Green Wig ( the university's drama group ), the Kaleidoscopians, ( its musical comedy club ) and he then merged the two into The Spectrum Players.

While a graduate student, one of his teachers was Dorothy Arzner, whose encouragement Coppola later acknowledged as pivotal to his film career.

Coppola was hired as an assistant by Roger Corman.

However, fame was still eluding him, and partly out of desperation, Coppola bought the rights to the David Benedictus novel You're a Big Boy Now and fused it with a story idea of his own, resulting in You're a Big Boy Now ( 1966 ).

Following the success of You're a Big Boy Now, Coppola was offered the reins of the movie version of the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark, in her first American film, and veteran Fred Astaire.

It was written, directed and initially produced by Coppola himself, though as the movie advanced, he fell short of his budget and the studio had to underwrite the remainder of the movie.

While touring Europe, Coppola was introduced to alternative filmmaking equipment and inspired by the bohemian spirit of Lanterna Film.

However, it was not easy for Coppola to convince Franklin J. Schaffner that the opening scene would work.

There was disagreement between Paramount and Coppola on the issue of casting ; Coppola stuck to his plan of casting Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, though Paramount wanted either Ernest Borgnine or Danny Thomas.

At one point, Coppola was told by the then-president of Paramount that " Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture ".

After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test, and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production ( as he had done on previous film sets ).

Although Coppola insisted that this was purely coincidental, for not only was the script for The Conversation completed in the mid-1960s ( before the election of Richard Nixon ) but the spying equipment used in the film was discovered through research and the use of technical advisers and not, as many believed, by revelatory newspaper stories about the Watergate break-in.

The movie was a critical success, and won Coppola his first Palme d ' Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and received 6 Oscars, including 3 for Coppola: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.

Coppola said that all the advice Corman offered was " Don't go ".