In the beginning of this year Paramount Pictures, which produced the Godfather Trilogy, sued the family of Mario Puzo, who wrote the original Godfather novel and co-wrote the scripts for the three films, for going ahead with a Godfather prequel novel based on an unused script by Puzo. Though the novel by Ed Falco, The Family Corleone, was released in May to a positive reception, Paramount wanted to prevent the Puzo family from diluting the Godfather brand by releasing novel after novel (the suit specifically cited the last two Godfather sequel novels, The Godfather Returns and The Godfather’s Revenge, which were both poorly received). In turn, the Puzo family claimed that Paramount no longer had rights to the property.
However, the two sides have come to a settlement, which was published by Deadline. Though the settlement hasn’t been disclosed, Paramount is free to pursue additional Godfather sequels if it so chooses — and has the rights to make a film based on The Family Corleone. Now like most people I have no desire to see a new Godfather film, but if one were to happen I’m at least happy that it would be partially based on a story developed by Puzo himself (on a Godfather forum, Falco — under the pseudonym of RichCerto — revealed that the novel was based on “unproduced pages extracted from The Godfather 3, and pages from The Godfather 4–the movie [Godfather director Francis Ford] Coppola and Puzo wanted to make but Paramount scotched. There’s a total of about 55 pages of script, and I followed as closely as possible Puzo’s story”). I mean, if it’s going to happen whether we like it or not, at least it involves the creator in some way, right?
Then again, Puzo co-wrote The Godfather Part III, and look how that turned out…
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