Coppola Seeks Bankruptcy Protection : Entertainment: The filmmaker and his Zoetrope production firm have been struggling to stay afloat for years.

Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and his Zoetrope Productions, long plagued by financial woes, filed Thursday for federal bankruptcy protection in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The dual filings, under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, came only weeks after a Los Angeles judge ordered Coppola to repay $3 million that he had borrowed from Canadian financier Jack Singer nine years ago to help keep his privately owned film studio afloat.

The Superior Court judge had set a Feb. 1 hearing on a demand for interest that could push Coppola’s liability in the case to $8 million. He also required the movie maker to post a $12-million bond in order to pursue an appeal before the California Supreme Court. The bankruptcy filing could supersede the bond requirement, an attorney for Singer said.

Coppola was in Italy, where he is directing “Godfather III” for Paramount Pictures, and couldn’t be reached for comment.

Jon Peters, an officer with San Francisco-based Zoetrope, and lawyers for Coppola declined to comment on the bankruptcy filings or the Los Angeles judgment.

When Coppola finished filming “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” for Paramount in 1988, he claimed to have escaped most of the financial problems that had stemmed from the costly failure of “One From the Heart,” which was released by Columbia Pictures in 1982, and from the subsequent collapse of his Zoetrope Studios production company in Los Angeles.

In 1988, Coppola said publicly that he had paid off debts by working on commercially oriented pictures such as “Tucker” and “Peggy Sue Got Married” and that he hoped to embark on a period of experimentation in his work as a writer and director.

Apparently, however, setbacks in his ongoing legal battle with Singer helped push the 50-year-old filmmaker toward a lucrative agreement to make a third movie in the “Godfather” series.

One individual closely familiar with the film said it is currently on budget and will cost about $44 million to produce. A recent report in Variety, an entertainment trade paper, said Coppola will be paid $6 million and a percentage of gross receipts to co-write, direct and co-produce the film.

A Paramount spokeswoman declined to comment on the figures but said the bankruptcy filing wasn’t expected to affect the film’s progress.

“Godfather III,” about the fictional Corleone family and their Mafia dealings, is set for release next Christmas.

According to Thursday’s bankruptcy filing, Zoetrope Productions--which Coppola launched in San Francisco after Security Pacific Corp. sold his Los Angeles studio to Singer in a 1984 loan foreclosure--had $28.8 million in debts and $22.1 million in assets.

(The Los Angeles facility, also known as Hollywood General Studios, had filed for bankruptcy protection in Los Angeles in 1983.)

Among the biggest Zoetrope creditors, according to Thursday’s filing, were Hot Weather Films/Ponyboy, at $16.2 million; Orion Pictures, at $6.2 million, and Zoetrope Corp. at $2.8 million.

An Orion attorney said studio officers weren’t certain why Orion was listed as a creditor and were looking into the matter. Orion distributed “Cotton Club,” directed by Coppola, in 1984.

Hot Weather Films produced Coppola’s “Rumble Fish,” which was released by Universal in 1983. It wasn’t immediately clear who owns Hot Weather.

Zoetrope Corp. was identified as an “affiliated company” of Zoetrope Productions in the filing.

Coppola’s personal bankruptcy filing didn’t provide a complete schedule of assets and liabilities and didn’t specifically mention his wife, Eleanor. But the filing did list a number of debts, including $3 million plus interest owed to Darion Development.

Darion is owned by Jack Singer and his family, according to their Los Angeles attorney, Robert Chapman, of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman & Machtinger.

It wasn’t clear whether the debts would jeopardize Coppola’s Napa Valley home and vineyard. Chapman said he was assured by an attorney for Coppola recently that the filmmaker had sufficient assets to cover any liability to Singer. But Chapman declined to discuss the extent of Coppola’s assets or whether the vineyard might be in jeopardy.

Born in Detroit, Coppola earned a master’s degree in cinema from UCLA in 1968 and went on to become a guru to a generation of film mavericks that included George Lucas, John Milius and others. He founded American Zoetrope in San Francisco in 1969 and made his commercial breakthrough in 1972 as writer, director and co-producer of “The Godfather.”

His career has been a roller-coaster ride, mixing fierce budget battles over costly films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Cotton Club” with wide acclaim for his craftsmanship as writer of “Patton” and writer and director of “Godfather II.”

Coppola was struck by personal tragedy in 1986, when his son Gian Carlo, then 23 years old, was killed in a boating accident. Griffin O’Neal, the son of actor Ryan O’Neal, was driver of the boat in which the younger Coppola was killed, and was charged with manslaughter but later acquitted.

Singer, a Calgary, Canada, real estate developer, and his son Alan, renamed Zoetrope’s former Los Angeles facility Hollywood Center Studio and continues to operate it as a rental facility for movie, television and commercial producers

Staff writer Martha Groves in San Francisco contributed to this story.