The crazy legal battle that almost sent Al Pacino straight back to square one
Sometimes, what seems like a small decision can have the biggest impact further down the line, that is the butterfly effect, and it’s certainly prevalent in the world of Hollywood movies, where had it not been for Al Pacino dropping out of a film that ended up long-forgotten, we would never have seen him in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic mafia masterpiece The Godfather.
And that would have been a major development to say the least, because Coppola’s 1972 film, and its sequel two years later, have gone down as possibly the finest pieces of cinema ever made in more than 100 years of history; lavish, perfectly acted, beautifully shot and masterfully directed episodes of human tragedy and conflict.
Pacino of course is at the very heart of it all, his portrayal of Michael Corleone and his journey from quiet outsider to head of a powerful crime family one of the most memorable in Hollywood history that earned him a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination for the first film and a ‘Best Actor’ nomination for the second, one of nine nods he has collected over his long career.
But he very, very nearly was not involved in the mafioso tale at all, and had it not been for Coppola’s insistence that the studio do all they could to get him, we would have had an entirely different lead actor, and possibly a film that would never have won ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Actor’ for Marlon Brando at the 1973 Academy Awards.
Pacino was signed up to make a completely different movie at the time, in a role that would end up going to the man who would also star in The Godfather Part Two, Robert De Niro. As the former recalled in conversation with author Lawrence Grobel, “I was involved in a movie called The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight at MGM…I was supposed to have said yes and signed for it, and then The Godfather came along. Nobody wanted me for The Godfather; I guess they wanted to cast Jack Nicholson. My agents were telling me to stick with The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. Francis [Ford Coppola] keeps telling me not to go with another picture’.”
In the end, following legal threats and a reduced salary of just $35,000, Pacino was released from his movie and was brought on board for the future mafia classic.
While the De Niro-fronted crime comedy was released in 1971 and almost sank without a trace, with some reviewers describing it as a ‘tasteless mess’, Pacino’s work on The Godfather has proved to be one of the most impressive displays in history, the movie regularly topping charts of the greatest films of all time.
But the lawyers weren’t done with him: once The Godfather Part II had been released, MGM studios decided to pursue him again for breach of contract, costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Ultimately, only a phone call from Pacino to the head of the studio managed to settle the matter.
The actor is currently working on several projects to be released over the next couple of years, including a drama about the founding of sports car brand Maserati, plus a star-studded film about the killing of JFK called Assassination, with Bryan Cranston and Brendan Fraser, far from any legal hoops.
