Where to watch The Godfather Part III (1990)

Trivia & production notes

• Paramount spent over a decade attempting to develop The Godfather Part III without Coppola, cycling through directors including Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Warren Beatty, while proposing storylines involving CIA-Mafia conspiracies and Michael Corleone's son inheriting the family business.
• Coppola only agreed to direct after facing bankruptcy from the failures of One from the Heart and The Cotton Club, signing on for $6 million plus profit participation.
• Robert Duvall declined to return as Tom Hagen unless paid comparably to Al Pacino's $6 million salary, leading Coppola to rewrite the character out by having him die before the film's events and replacing him with George Hamilton's B.J. Harrison character.
• Julia Roberts was originally cast as Mary Corleone but withdrew to star in Pretty Woman, followed by Winona Ryder dropping out after a few weeks of filming due to commitments to Mermaids and nervous exhaustion.
• Sofia Coppola ultimately played Mary Corleone after Madonna tested for the role but was deemed too old by her father, and tragically, Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by an obsessed fan on the day she was scheduled to audition for the part.
• Frank Sinatra was offered the role of Don Altobello but could not commit to the shooting schedule, resulting in Eli Wallach taking the part instead.
• Coppola delayed filming in Italy by constantly rewriting the script and reportedly did not finalize an ending until two months before the film's release date.
• Carmine Coppola, the director's father, wrote and conducted much of the film's music, continuing his work from The Godfather Part II.
• Coppola was forced to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy during production, complicating the search for a replacement actress when Winona Ryder's health issues delayed filming.
• The final screenplay went through twelve rewrites and bore almost no resemblance to the various scripts developed over the previous twelve years, except for a home-invasion scene that survived from a 1979 draft.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Godfather Part III, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.