Al Pacino said he initially rejected $1 million to star in 'The Godfather Part II' because the script was 'unfinished.' The screenwriter called the first draft 'crap.'

• Al Pacino said Paramount erstwhile offered him $1 cardinal to prima successful "The Godfather Part II."
• In his memoir, "Sonny Boy," Pacino said he initially turned it down because nan book was incomplete.
• Mario Puzo, 1 of nan screenwriters, said nan first draught was "crap."

Al Pacino said that Paramount was truthful keen to make "The Godfather Part II" that they offered him $1 cardinal to prima successful nan film. But he turned it down until nan book was complete.

Production studios often raise salaries for formed members and board erstwhile making sequels to seduce them to return.

In his caller memoir, "Sonny Boy," Pacino wrote that Paramount, nan workplace down "The Godfather," did nan aforesaid erstwhile they realized it was a hit.

"The Godfather" was nan first modern blockbuster, making complete $250 cardinal astatine nan container agency and winning 3 Oscars.

Pacino wrote that Mario Puzo, nan movie series' co-screenwriter, first approached him astir reprising his domiciled arsenic Michael Corleone, and gave him nan script's first draft.

Per nan memoir, Puzo told him: "'It's crap,' he said, 'I don't deliberation nan book is very good. But they gave it to maine to springiness to you. I conscionable want to show you.'"

After reference nan script, Pacino agreed pinch Puzo and thought he couldn't prima successful nan film. Then Paramount approached him to raise his salary.

"They kept coming to maine pinch prices, and nan prices kept going higher. First $100,000. Then $200,000. Then they sewage it to up to $600,000. That was existent money astatine nan time," he wrote.

Later, a shaper called Pacino to his agency to person him.

"And past he reached into his desk, and he pulled retired a tin box. He said to me: 'Al, what if I told you there's 1 cardinal dollars successful rate successful that box?'" Pacino wrote. "It could person been a cardinal bucks aliases packets of sugar, aliases it could person been empty. It was each retired of my league. It was an abstraction. And it did not make 1 spot of difference."

What Pacino made from nan first movie is not publically known, but he wrote that he was collapsed and owed money aft starring successful "The Godfather."

Pacino signed connected to "The Godfather Part II" aft he helped constitute a caller draft

Pacino wrote that Francis Ford Coppola, who directed nan first film, joined nan sequel and made Paramount nonstop him a caller script.

"He must person told them consecutive out, 'Stop raising his salary. He doesn't want money. He conscionable wants a script. He'll do it,'" Pacino wrote.

Pacino still didn't motion connected to nan film, penning successful nan memoir that he wanted a "better script" because nan existent 1 was "unfinished."

Per nan memoir, Pacino agreed to look successful nan movie aft moving connected a caller draught successful a edifice pinch Charlie Laughton, a mentor and friend, and Coppola for "six days and six nights."

Pacino wrote: "We'd talk to Francis, Francis would write, bring it back, we'd talk again, write, bring it back. I had nary thought really to constitute a script. I conscionable knew that nan furnishings was already there, but you request moving men to transportation it into nan house.

"When we near nan edifice astatine nan extremity of nan week, Charlie looked up astatine nan room number, 617. 'I deliberation we each made history here, Al.'"

There are various accounts of really overmuch "The Godfather Part II" made, but each work together that it was not arsenic large a container agency deed arsenic nan prequel. However, nan movie won six Oscars, including champion screenplay, and is wide regarded arsenic 1 of nan greatest movies of each time.