The sequel novels continue the story from Puzo's novel.

Partially based on Puzo's 1969 novel, The Godfather, the film is in part both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather, presenting two parallel dramas.

Mario Puzo's first novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, was a highly inspiration treatment of the immigrant experience, which was widely reviewed as being well crafted, moving and poetic.

This is the origin of the title of Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather, as well as the idea of a Mafia don serving as an actual godfather.

* Events from the war ( most notably the assassination of Maranzano ) are included in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather.

Michael is a secondary character in Puzo's novel The Sicilian, which takes place during his first exile in Sicily.

Sarkar was a loose adaptation of Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather.

In Mario Puzo's historical novel The Family, Giovanni Borgia's murder by his younger brother Geoffre is one of the central drama points of the story.

Vito Andolini Corleone is a fictional character and the main character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, as well as Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, where he was portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and by Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II.

Frederico " Fredo " Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, and is based on Michael Fiorentino, the real life son of a childhood friend of Puzo's.

In Puzo's novel, Fredo is thought of in the Corleone family as the weakest and least intelligent of the three Corleone brothers, and therefore is given its unimportant businesses to run.

Santino " Sonny " Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather and its 1972 film adaptation.

Vincent's existence in the film contradicts the literary universe, as Puzo's original novel stated that Lucy never bore a child with Sonny.

The character's existence was retconned for The Godfather Part III, as it is evident from Mario Puzo's original novel that Lucy did not conceive a child with Sonny.

This would later be compared to the relationship between Mario Puzo's character " Luca Brasi " and " Don Vito Corleone's " so-called " strength " in the novel The Godfather.

The word was popularized by Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather ( 1969 ), and its film adaptation.

In Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, The Godfather, Sonny Corleone was in the process of running to go settle a years-long dispute with Carlo Rizzi and drove his Buick across Jones Beach from the Wantagh State Parkway ( mentioned as the Jones Beach Causeway ) towards the " causeway that would take him over the water from Long Beach ".

The Godfather Returns, Mark Winegardner's 2004 sequel to Puzo's original novel, portrays Hagen's role as consigliere in the first few years after Michael ascends to the head of the family.

The word achieved wider recognition through Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather where the lupara is used extensively by the mafia in Sicily, including Michael Corleone's bodyguards.

Kay appears as a supporting character in The Godfather Returns ( 2004 ) and The Godfather's Revenge ( 2006 ), Mark Winegardner's two sequels to Puzo's original novel.

Apollonia Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather.

Peter Clemenza is a fictional character appearing in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather and two of the three films based on it.

Clemenza's gradual takeover of the Corleone empire in New York is briefly covered in The Godfather Returns, Mark Winegardner's sequel to Puzo's original novel.

In 1983 Puzo's literary sequel to The Godfather was published.

In 2004, Random House published a sequel to Puzo's The Godfather, The Godfather Returns, by Mark Winegardner.

The Godfather Returns picks up the story immediately after the end of Puzo's The Godfather.

Continuing Puzo's habit, as seen in The Godfather, of featuring characters who are close analogues of real life events and public figures ( as Johnny Fontane is an analogue of Frank Sinatra ), Winegardner features in his two Godfather novels analogues of Joseph, John, and Robert Kennedy, as well as an analogue for alleged organized crime figure Carlos Marcello ( Carlo Tramonti ).

* The Official Mario Puzo's Library entry for The Godfather

The title character of Vito Corleone in Mario Puzo's The Godfather was considered by many to be largely based on Bonanno, although the character is in many ways a composite of several figures.

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.

* Maranzano plays a small fictionalized role in Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

* Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone was a fictional character in Mario Puzo's The Godfather saga.

Puzo's involvement with Earthquake was short-lived, however, as Paramount Pictures was anxious to begin development with the followup to The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II.

Michael Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novels, The Godfather and The Sicilian.

* Kay Adams-Corleone, a character in Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

* Virgil Sollozzo, the traitorous Tattaglia caporegime from Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and the subsequent film adaptation

He hired William Kennedy and Francis Ford Coppola to re-write Mario Puzo's story and screenplay.

Examples of this are Dino De Laurentiis ' $ 9 million acquisition of Thomas Harris ' Hannibal and Miramax purchasing Mario Puzo's Omertà for $ 2 -$ 3 million.

However, Puzo's detailed script necessitated a much larger production budget ( as the action and characters were spread over a vast geographical area in the city of Los Angeles ), and Universal was faced with either cutting the script down, or increasing the film's projected budget.

Since Puzo's services were contractually obligated to the sequel, he felt he would be unable to continue work on two projects of such a large scale, so he opted out of continuing any further work on Earthquake.

Fueled by the enormous box office receipts of that film, Universal Studios put pre-production on Earthquake back into high gear, hiring writer George Fox to continue work with Puzo's first draft.

Also appearing in Mario Puzo's 1997 mini-series, The Last Don and in its sequel, The Last Don II.