IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE now, but at the time The Godfather was a major risk. Its director, Francis Ford Coppola, was coming off a small movie called The Rain People, which had cost just $750,000, a sum Vito Corleone wouldn’t get out of his chair for. Marlon Brando was seen as a washed-up has-been, called “box-office poison” by a high-level executive who was agitating for Charles Bronson to play the Don instead. And nobody wanted the intense 31-year-old named Al Pacino to be in it either. The production was fraught, with raging arguments, tension and probably even the odd gun stashed behind a loo.
Flash forward five decades, and nobody is taking sides against the family again. Ever. The Godfather is arguably the most influential drama in cinema history, referenced in everything from The Sopranos to Gilmore Girls. And what is Succession, but The Godfather with less blood and way more Fredos? Time has somehow only increased the 1972 movie’s power, its rich psychological undercurrents, its sumptuous cinematography, its ability to make anyone watching instantly want a cannoli. And so quoted is its dialogue that I’ve made a promise to myself not to use a hackneyed “offer you can’t refuse” reference on this page.