Go behind the scenes of the making of The Godfather starting today, with the new Paramount+ series The Offer. It focuses on the obstacles producer Al Ruddy faced in trying to get the film made.
Series showrunner Nikki Toscano tells ABC Audio those obstacles involved battling not budgets and casting, "but the real life mafia in order to get this movie made."
"I think that there's a lot of the sort of life and death stakes of trying to get your film made, while also contending with the Mafia is a pretty, pretty big one," she continues.
"Every movie goes through the problems of, oh, can we raise enough money? Can we come in on budget? Who's against us? Who's trying to kill the movie?" adds Russell Rothberg, The Offer's executive producer. "But when it comes to who's trying to kill the movie and it's the Mafia, that's kind of a very unique story with big stakes."
Juno Temple, who plays producer Al Ruddy's assistant Bettye McCartt in the film says a lot of details about The Godfather surprised her, but the revelation she found most shocking? "That Al Pacino almost got fired -- that was shocking. Like what? On what planet? You know what I mean?"
Adds Temple, "Can you imagine if Al Pacino had been fired? We wouldn't be sitting here talking about it."
Miles Teller, who plays Ruddy in the movie, was more fascinated to learn how the sausage was made.
"People say they don't want to know how the sausage is made, they just know they like sausage. For this it's the opposite," he explains. "Now that I know how it's made, it even makes me like sausage even more. I love sausage. Can't get enough of it."