Coppola did not want to direct `Godfather`

Los Angeles: It is considered the most famous gangster movie but director Francis Ford Coppola has revealed that he was initially reluctant to adapt Mario Puzo`s `Godfather`. Coppola shared some interesting anecdotes about his career as a writer-director-producer during the Producers Guild`s Produced By Conference in Burbank. The director`s many initial films failed to do well at the box office and Coppola said having mixed reaction "is a terrible thing", reportedly. The director then described how he finally came onboard to direct and produce `Godfather`, his most famous film till date. "I didn`t want to make The Godfather. I needed the money. It was a job," Coppola said, adding he adapted the book to the screen "slavishly". The director also shared how Marlon Brando once left him in the lurch, prompting him to rewrite an entire scene in `The Godfather: Part II`. Coppola had set up a scene to be shot on a Monday for the film which involved a reunion of Corleone family members from the first film, celebrating the birthday of the family patriarch. Over the weekend, he learned that Marlon Brando, dissatisfied with his paycheck on the first outing, had cancelled. "The producer of me went to the director of me and he said, talk to the writer (again Coppola)." He then wrote some new pages to justify Corleone`s absence in the movie.