Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important films of all time, but its road to the silver screen was not an easy one for the now-celebrated filmmaker.
In fact, turmoil behind the scenes almost prevented it from ever seeing the light of day. Its studio, Paramount, famously hated everything about the movie adaptation of The Godfather, especially its star Al Pacino, who would go on to become a superstar based on his Oscar-nominated performance in the film.
Of course, the movie ended up being the highest-grossing film of 1972, winning three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and changing the face of cinema forever.
Now, on the 50th anniversary of the film's release, Paramount is giving us a look behind the scenes of The Godfather's tumultuous production in The Offer, a new limited series for its own streaming service, Paramount Plus.
In the lead up to its April 28 premiere, Paramount has released the first teaser trailer for The Offer, which you can check out below.
Analysis: we're worried Paramount won't show the whole story
According to the show's official synopsis, The Offer is "based on Oscar-winning producer Albert S. Ruddy’s extraordinary, never-revealed experiences of making The Godfather”.
While the series sports a stellar cast, which includes Miles Teller (Whiplash) as Ruddy, alongside Matthew Goode (Watchmen) as super-producer Robert Evans, the trailer above leaves us a little worried that Paramount is going to offer a sanitized version of the story in order to avoid shedding more light on its past practices.
The trailer doesn't offer even a slight hint at the studio's well-documented interference before and during The Godfather's production, opting instead to focus on the film's fight to get made in the face of strong opposition from Italian-Americans, which included legendary singer Frank Sinatra.
Of course, we're basing all of this on a brief teaser trailer, so it's entirely possible that the series will indeed document Paramount's attempts to replace Pacino, fire Coppola and grossly underpay Brando. We'll have to wait until The Offer premieres on Paramount Plus on April 28 to find out if the series will leave the cannoli.
