For much of 1970, executives at Paramount had been wooing Coppola to take the helm of a low-budget action film based on one of the biggest books of 1969, a sprawling gangster novel by Mario Puzo called The Godfather. Coppola was with Lucas, recutting THX in the Mill Valley editing room, when Paramount executive Peter Bart called once more to offer him The Godfather. “They’ve just offered me this Italian gangster movie,” Coppola told Lucas. “It’s like a $3 million potboiler based on a best-seller. Should I do it?”135 To Lucas, whose father had always reinforced the concept of staying in the
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