Coppola to Reshoot Portions of ‘Godfather, Part III’

After spending $55 million and six months behind the camera, director Francis Ford Coppola will return to Italy to reshoot portions of his upcoming epic, “The Godfather, Part III,” according to sources close to the project.

The $5 million in reshoots--one week in Sicily in early September, followed by one week in New York, and involving stars Al Pacino and Diane Keaton--will boost the cost of the troubled production to more than $60 million, the sources said. Coppola has said that the film was budgeted at $44 million.

Paramount Pictures President Sidney Ganis denied that there were problems with the movie. He said “any costs associated (with the reshoots) were absolutely, unequivocally budgeted” and involve “no major material whatsoever, only incidental scenes.”

Both Paramount and Coppola have a lot riding on the much-heralded project. The first two “Godfather” movies--released in 1972 and 1974--together grossed more than $700 million at theaters and earned another $100 million in TV and video sales.

Paramount, which has lost its historical dominance at the box office, could use another artistic and commercial success of that magnitude. The studio has been trying to get “Godfather III” off the ground since 1974, when the first sequel to Coppola’s epic became a smash box-office hit and earned an Academy Award for best picture.

For Coppola, “Godfather III” is a chance to revive his sagging reputation as one of the country’s premier filmmakers and to pay off debts that forced him to put his Zoetrope Productions into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He is being paid $6 million to direct the film, sources close to the project say.

Staff writer Jack Mathews contributed to this story.