Acclaimed film director Francis Ford Coppola was “so depressed” after the first viewing of his movie The Godfather Part II that he hid under his bed.
Coppola helmed the original The Godfather movie in 1972, which is often regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, and starred Marlon Brando, a young Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton. It told the story of an organized crime family that had migrated to the U.S. from Sicily, Italy.
But the second movie of what would become a trilogy of films was not so well received after a screening in 1974, and Coppola recalled the moment he first watched the movie with an audience at a preview screening in San Francisco during an interview with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“They hated it,” Coppola said of the audience’s reaction, adding that he went straight home from the screening and “I hid under my bed. When you’re going through that and you have a picture that isn’t being received well, everyone seems to have the need to talk to you, to either a console you or to say, ‘oh, they’re wrong, or they’re right’.”
Francis Ford Coppola arrives for “The Godfather” 50th Anniversary premiere screening in Hollywood, California, on February 22, 2022. The director got “depressed” making the movie’s sequel.
Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images
The Oscar-winning director explained he came to the realization while hiding under his bed that the audience might not have liked the movie because it was set in “two time periods. It was like a prequel and a sequel at the same time.”
Coppola had a chance to fix what he perceived as errors before the film officially opened six weeks later.
Despite that troubling experience, Coppola said one of the happiest times he ever had on set was making The Godfather Part II.
“[It] was a good experience because there was no nonsense or stupidity,” Coppola said referring to his notoriously difficult relationship with Paramount Pictures during the production of The Godfather.
But ahead of making the famous sequel, Coppola did not want to direct it, instead hoping the then-up and coming Martin Scorsese could take over.
“I was always just trying to bluff the studio to let me, you know, do it my way,” Coppola told NPR in 2021 about the difficulties he had with Paramount. “And it was just the most frightening and depressing experience I think I’ve ever had.”
When Paramount then insisted on making a sequel to the popular Godfather, Coppola said he would co-write the screenplay with author Mario Puzo, on whose book the first movie is based. He suggested the “fabulous talent” Scorsese should direct in his place.
Paramount rejected his idea, and he went on to make what some believed was the best sequel feature film ever.
The director spoke to Horowitz during the press tour of his latest film Megalopolis, which stars Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza and Giancarlo Esposito.
The movie is set in New Rome and tells the story of “the conflict between Cesar Catilina, a brilliant artist in favor of a utopian future, and the greedy mayor Franklyn Cicero. Between them is Julia Cicero, her loyalty divided between her father and her beloved,” per IMDB.
