[imagesource: Paramount]

The third and final movie of one of cinema’s all-time great trilogies dropped in 1990.

The Godfather Part III, whilst still better than other third instalments, has been criticised over the years, and even producer and director Francis Ford Coppola has been itching for a redo.

He’s always wanted to shorten certain scenes, rearrange others, and even change the ending, and he’s now received the green light from Paramount Pictures.

The new title will be Mario Puzo’s The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, reports Deadline, with the release slated for December, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original hitting cinemas.

Mario Puza cowrote the screenplay:

“[The remake] is an acknowledgement of Mario’s and my preferred title and our original intentions for what became ‘The Godfather: Part III,’” Coppola [below] said.

Image: Mark Mann

“For this version of the finale, I created a new beginning and ending, and rearranged some scenes, shots, and music cues. With these changes and the restored footage and sound, to me, it is a more appropriate conclusion to ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Godfather: Part II’ and I’m thankful to Jim Gianopulos and Paramount for allowing me to revisit it.”

Despite being nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, the third instalment is widely seen as inferior to its two predecessors.

It did give us one of cinema’s most iconic lines – “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in” – but Coppola’s casting of his daughter, Sofia Coppola, as Mary Corleone, was widely panned by critics.

Via Polygon, here’s an excerpt from film review icon Roger Ebert’s take back in 1990:

Some of the dialogue scenes, especially in the beginning, sound vaguely awkward; the answers do not fit the questions, and conversations seem to have been rewritten in the editing room….

The whole ambitious final movement of the film — in which two separate intrigues are intercut with the progress of an opera being sung by Anthony — is intended to be suspenseful but is so confusing, we are not even sure which place (Sicily, Rome, London?) one of the intrigues is occurring.

The final scene of the movie, which is intended to echo Marlon Brando’s famous death scene, is perfunctory and awkward.

In order to remake the classic, Coppola and his production company worked from a 4K scan of the movie’s original negative, to create a frame-by-frame restoration.

More on that here.

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get a new ending to The Sopranos…

[sources:deadline&polygon]