Challenge: Godfather III, a Good Version

Before Phantom Menace and midiclorians, before Indian Jones and the fridge, there was Godfather III and Sophia Coppola's acting.

Back in the day, Godfather III was the cultural disappointment of its time, with a lot viewed as too out there, poor acting by Coppola's daughter in a lead role, and so on, and was considered the weakest of the entries in the Godfather series. It's reputation has improved in time (likely in the face of the far, far worse follow ups to franchises that came a decade after it was released), but it is still not considered anything near the rest of the series.

The challenge, therefore, is to make Godfather III good. You can edit the elements of the film as it came out, or completely start anew with what they should have done. Keep in mind, too, the studio approached Coppola for decades to make Part III before he finally made it, so there is a lot of room to ask what if he had made it at another point.
 
No Sofia Coppola.

Pay Duvall a similar salary to Pacino and make it about Tom Hagen VS Michael.

If you do that, you've got a much better movie.
 

Stolengood

Banned
I think it would've been very interesting if he'd come out with the sequels two years after each other, stopping when either he or Mario Puzo though the story was complete... so:

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

The Godfather Part III (1976)

The Godfather Part IV (1978)

The Godfather Part V (1980)

(In the meantime, George Lucas and John Milius would make Apocalypse Now, and Star Wars, unfortunately, is butterflied out of existence.)
 
I agree with the Tom Hagen vs. Michael Corleone idea. The entire series is building up to that crescendo which never happens. On the one hand there's this emotional, vengeful Michael who has changed so dramatically since the beginning of the first film. Then there's Tom, who is far more practical and recognizes that the Corleone family isn't what it once was. The story practically rights itself. There's no need for Michael to focus on redemption, which is really too dramatic of a shift from the second film.
 
I'm agreeing with the Tom v. Michael idea for Godfather III. Make Michael win it, of course, and then finish the series with the search for redemption, starting by him wondering if his soul truly is damned for everything he has done. That would almost write itself.
 
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