81–90 of 139 posts
Still, he pulled off Apocalypse Now under similar terms and $120m is enough to do a great movie with great talent. IIRC his script is from the early 80’s at the end of his golden age. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).
I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with…
Really? How so?
Godfather I tells a single coherent story about a power struggle.
Godfather II tells two stories, but neither of them relates to the story from I except in that they involve the same people at different stages of their lives.
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I don't think it's because he put his daughter in it. Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo. Godfather III is not based on the book. Think of it from the POV of - wow, I & II were quite successful so let's milk it and see if we can make money with another sequel.
>Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo. ever read the book? It's a dog.
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> Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. While I'll agree Sofia is a much better director than actress (she’s a truly outstanding writer and director) and that Ryder would have been better (Coppola later did work with her on Bram Stoker's Dracula), I’m not going to be mad at him casting his daughter or even blaming it on nepotism…
There have probably been better character analysis done, but I think Sofia did not have the time to "soak in" GF1 and GF2 to give her character any specific nuance that we could love. It's difficult to separate "blandness" and purity in her rendering of the daughter of the godfather, but consider also this: she was not a seasoned actress, and there were very few ways you could interpret this role in a great and memor…
I don't mind the Godfather III. It's not nearly the movie its predecessors were but it's also not nearly as bad as some claim, but during any scene with Coppola in it, I literally need to skip forward to avoid the sheer cringe effect she creates with her dialogue, facial expressions and gestures..
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You have some examples? I just checked Interstellar and The Martian ($145MM and $108MM budget respectively) but they were very much profitable.
Jupiter Ascending. Reminiscence. Tenet. I don't think Ad Astra did that well.
We could as well skip the movie and start the debate right away. >What he dreams about, he said, is creating something like It's a Wonderful Life—a movie everyone goes to see, once a year, forever. “On New Year's, instead of talking about the fact that you're going to give up carbohydrates, I'd like this one question to be discussed, which is: Is the society we live in the only one available to us? And discuss it.” >…
This sounds like a project a developer would do, that's just a bit too much. One that has too many features. One that said developer has been thinking of for the past 10 years.
The passion project.
And passion projects generally fail.
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I don't think it's because he put his daughter in it. Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo. Godfather III is not based on the book. Think of it from the POV of - wow, I & II were quite successful so let's milk it and see if we can make money with another sequel.
>Godfather I & II is based on the Book written by Mario Puzzo. ever read the book? It's a dog.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Not necessarily, it's gotten much harder to produce projects that aren't commercially marketable IP like Marvel. I listened to a Matt Damon interview recently and he basically wondered aloud if he could get a studio to make Good Will Hunting today, which made me sad to hear. Many of his early movies were low to mid-budget one-off dramas, which aren'…
The middle-ground movies like "Good Will Hunting" are, unfortunately, pretty much dead in the water right now, they have been since before the pandemic (I'd say since the early 2010s). Some directors and producers in France (because the same thing has been happening there, at another level) tried to do something about it by staging some protests around 2012-2013 if I'm not mistaken, this interview [1] (in French) fro…
I would suspect it did not make that money back. The studios are in the movie business and not the lighting money on fire business.
I think we have just seen a fundamental shift in the tastes of the 18-35 demographic and what kind of movies they want to see. Quality fast food type movies as opposed to a full sit down multiple course meal type movie.
I love Coppola but I wouldn't want to invest in this project either at this point.