December 25, 1990 –
Francis Ford Coppola’s much maligned sequel, The Godfather III starring everyone you would expect (except Robert Duvell, who couldn’t come to an agreement about his salary,) went into general release on this date.
Francis Ford Coppola once admitted that he was still unhappy over the final result because of lack of time to write the script. According to him, he had wanted $6 million for the writer, producer, and director fee and 6 months to write the script. Instead, the studio gave him only $1 million in fees and only 6 weeks to work on the script (in order to meet the Christmas 1990 release date). He also regretted that the character of Tom Hagen had to be written out of the script because the studio refused to meet Robert Duvall’s financial demands. According to Coppola, with Hagen gone, an essential character and counterpart for Michael Corleone was missing from the movie.
The Haus of Dcaligari 