Probably the Costliest Death in The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola Reportedly Spent $100K For One Scene Even After Paramount Only Gave $6 Million to Shoot the Movie

Six figures probably don’t matter much when you are the driver behind the wheel of The Godfather. But Francis Ford Coppola has never been one to stick to the rules. To the chagrin of the Hollywood studio system and its financiers, the director has been a chaos bringer for the better part of his career – a behavior that was further exemplified in his latest directorial project, Megalopolis.

Known for going massively over budget and slashing entire production departments, the Coppola patriarch has always been on the verge of anarchy while running a film set. During the epic making of The Godfather, he began showing the earliest symptoms while filming James Caan’s death scene – an event that would go on to establish the tonal intention of the movie.

Francis Ford Coppola Goes Overbudget For an Assassination

A catalytic incident in the sequence of the unfolding epic that is The Godfather, James Caan holds no greater value than cheese in a mousetrap. The character’s very purpose was to instigate a bigger event while luring the viewer into the seductive trap of Francis Ford Coppola‘s masterpiece. As such, his purpose was served more in death than in life, and Coppola ensured Sonny Corleone’s death was felt in every vein of the audience even if it meant going massively over the studio’s budget.

After Hollywood failed to draw in an audience with mob movies up until the ’70s, the fate of The Godfather was doomed according to the studio’s expectations. Assigned only $6 million for what was already considered a predetermined failure, Francis Ford Coppola used up $100,000 of his budget in simply setting up and executing the assassination of Sonny Corleone.

In doing so, the director not only helped elevate the film’s tone and story but took the first step towards making the Marlon Brando and Al Pacino film a classic in movie history.

Sonny Corleone’s Death Sets the Tone of The Godfather

Like a lamb to the slaughter, Francis Ford Coppola’s grand plan for one of his actors in The Godfather shook the very foundation of the film, not due to its scale or necessity but also because of the quality it established for the film that would rewrite history. A Newsday Report via Scraps From the Loft goes on to explain how Coppola pulled off the scene with surgical efficiency.

Packed from head to torso with gunpowder squibs and sacks of fake blood, a Lincoln Continental driven by James Caan slowly rolled into the tollbooth at a reconstructed Jones Beach Causeway. What happened next has forever been etched into the pages of cinematic history. 110 brass casings carefully stacked inside Caan’s clothing and over 200 explosive squibs placed inside predrilled holes in the Continental were detonated on cue by the crew and filmed in one take.

Upon completion, the effect was no less realistic than the brutality of an actual street gunfight. James Caan’s arc as the hotheaded and brash Sonny Corleone – who loved to exercise his fists and knuckles more than the muscles in his brain – came to an early and unexpected end. But in death, Caan helped set the violent and fatalistic style of The Godfather even though it meant expending $100,000 in 1971, equivalent to $800,000 (adjusted for inflation) in 2024, making it the costliest death in the film.

The Godfather is available for streaming on Paramount+