While Francis Ford Coppola wanted Martin Scorsese to replace him as the director of The Godfather Part II, it might secretly be a good thing that this never happened. The Godfather trilogy isn’t perfect, and it is tough to find even the most forgiving fan or critic who would argue that The Godfather Part III lives up to its two franchise predecessors. That said, The Godfather Part II sits alongside Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Aliens as one of the most frequently cited examples of a sequel that managed to outdo its predecessor.

For all The Godfather Part III’s disappointments, The Godfather Part II is an unquestioned masterpiece. Building on the elegiac tone of the original, director Francis Ford Coppola’s sequel opens up the world of the series with a sprawling, multi-generational crime saga. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino dazzle as a young Vito Corleone and his troubled son Michael, and the parallels between their divergent character arcs gracefully intersect in an epic tragedy that spans decades and continents. However, The Godfather Part II was almost a very different movie as the project almost had a very different director.

Francis Ford Coppola Wanted Martin Scorsese To Direct The Godfather II Due To Studio Meddling

The Godfather’s Tricky Production Made Coppola Eager To Hand The Franchise Over

According to an Esquire retrospective on the making of The Godfather Part II, Coppola’s strained relationship with The Godfather producer Bob Evans led him to suggest Scorsese directing The Godfather Part II. While The Godfather was a huge success, its production was infamously troubled from start to finish. From questionable investors to trouble securing funds, to location shooting issues, to The Godfather’s surprisingly extensive prosthetics work, the Mario Puzo adaptation left its director spent. The Godfather might have been an Academy Award-winning blockbuster, but that alone couldn’t tempt Coppola back.

In a 2019 interview, Coppola told ᴅᴇᴀᴅline that he instead asked Paramount Pictures to hire “A fabulous young director by the name of Martin Scorsese.” Scorsese’s career was heating up at the time thanks to the success of Mean Streets, but the director had not even turned 30 and only had three feature films to his name. It would be another three years before he directed De Niro in Taxi Driver and another four after that before he made 1980’s seminal boxing biopic Raging Bull. Although hindsight is 20/20, Scorsese was undeniably an untested talent.

Understandably, Paramount Pictures wasn’t eager to hand the reins of what could be an immensely profitable franchise over to Coppola’s young, unproven wunderkind. As a result, the studio came back with an offer that Coppola couldn’t refuse. Complete creative control and a million-dollar paycheck convinced Coppola to direct the sequel, resulting in one of the best gangster movies ever and arguably one of Hollywood’s greatest offerings. For all The Godfather’s divergences from the realities of mob life, The Godfather Part II debuted to critical acclaim and commercial success.

Why Martin Scorsese Didn’t Direct The Godfather Part II

Paramount Wanted Coppola Despite The Director’s Misgivings

Paramount refused to hire Scorsese for The Godfather Part II due to his lack of experience, so the director never got the chance to turn down the job himself. It is not entirely clear whether Scorsese would have wanted to take on such a gargantuan responsibility so early in his career when his work to date was mostly notable for its raw edge and lithe, unpredictable tone. The sequel could have been too staid a project for his screen persona, although The Godfather Part II’s villains are arguably as nasty as any of the antagonists from Scorsese’s back catalog.

In a 2024 interview with ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, Scorsese candidly admitted that he couldn’t envision himself making such a mature movie at a time when he still felt like an edgy young Enfant terrible. Per the director, “I don’t think I could have made a film on that level at that time in my life, and who I was at that time. To make a film as elegant and masterful and as historically important as Godfather II, I don’t think… Now, I would’ve made something interesting, but his maturity was already there. I still had this kind of edgy thing, the wild kid running around.”

Would Martin Scorsese Directing The Godfather Part II Have Worked?

Scorsese’s Take On The Godfather Part II Would Have Been Very Different

Scorsese is clearly an astounding director, but he was comparatively brand new to the craft when Coppola put his name out for an incredibly expensive, complex movie. Scorsese wouldn’t have the experience of making such an epic big-budget affair for some years, and 1977’s divisive musical New York, New York arguably proves that he was still unprepared for a project of such scale and ambition even later that decade.

Since Scorsese himself concedes he probably didn’t have the same filmmaking maturity as Coppola, and notes later in the interview that his work mostly focuses on the street-level element of gangsters, Scorsese’s version of The Godfather Part II would have felt profoundly different. With their foul-mouthed protagonists and constant injections of violence and hard drug use, Scorsese’s mob movies arguably act as a riposte to the glamorous vision of mob life in the upper echelons depicted by The Godfather. As such, Martin Scorsese’s take on The Godfather Part II could have inadvertently deconstructed Francis Ford Coppola’s original movie.

Sources: ᴅᴇᴀᴅline

Esquire

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