Short Takes : Coppola Shoots for Big Audience

Why did Francis Ford Coppola make “The Godfather, Part III”?

“For the same reasons I made the second one: it didn’t go away, and they basically promised me carte blanche,” Coppola, 51, said in Sunday’s New York Times.

“ ‘The Godfather’ became my claim to fame and my claim to be able to continue making movies,” he said.

The first two “Godfathers” are the only movie and its sequel to both win the Academy Award for best picture. Earlier this year Coppola filed for bankruptcy and claims to owe up to $7 million after such flops as “The Cotton Club” and “One From the Heart.”

“I began to realize I didn’t know who my audience was,” he told the Times. “When I made a film, a ton of people didn’t just turn out to see it.”

He said he began to realize that he was getting older and didn’t have a big audience anymore.

“ ‘The Godfather’ always represented to me a chance to have a big audience,” he said.

Coppola will earn $5 million for writing, directing and producing the third chapter of the saga, plus a 15% share of the gross.