Although The Godfather III got a positive reception, it didn’t live up to the quality of its predecessors, and one of its most criticized elements was unintentionally provoked by Winona Ryder. In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola brought Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel The Godfather to the big screen, becoming one of the greatest movies ever made and a landmark of the gangster genre, making way for a film trilogy. The Godfather II arrived two years later and served as both a sequel and prequel to the first movie, and the third installment arrived in 1990, which Coppola considers an epilogue.
The Godfather III continues the story of the patriarch of the Corleone family, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), who attempts to legitimize his criminal empire, but as expected, he makes a lot more enemies along the way. The Godfather III also catches up with Michael’s now grown-up children, Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) and Mary (Sofia Coppola), with the latter standing out for the wrong reasons. Sofia Coppola’s performance has been heavily criticized, and it’s often singled out as the worst element of The Godfather III, but this could have been avoided had Winona Ryder not dropped out at the last minute.
Production for The Godfather III began in 1989, and by then, Winona Ryder was already an acclaimed young actress thanks to her roles in Beetlejuice, Heathers, and Great Balls of Fire!. After considering actresses like Julia Roberts and Rebecca Schaeffer for the role of Mary Corleone, and with Coppola turning down Madonna for being “too old” for the part, Winona Ryder was cast, but there had to be a last-minute change when she arrived in Rome to start shooting. According to EW, Coppola waited for Ryder to finish filming the comedy-drama Mermaids and join the production of The Godfather III. Ryder had one day before she was scheduled to start filming, and according to Vanity Fair, she spent that day “being fitted and coiffed for the shoot”. However, Ryder didn’t answer her call the next day.
Johnny Depp, who had traveled with her, called the studio to tell them Ryder wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t get out of bed, and after the production’s doctor examined her, the doctor declared Ryder was suffering from nervous collapse and advised producers to send her home or she would suffer a complete breakdown. Paramount president Sidney Ganis and others tried to convince Ryder that “it would be OK to come back to work”, but as soon as she was able to get up, she and Depp went back to California. Co-producer Fred Roos quickly found actress Laura San Giacomo as a possible replacement, but Coppola turned her down, as well as other unnamed actresses. Coppola ended up casting his 18-year-old daughter Sofia Coppola as she had arrived in Rome to spend Christmas with her parents, and as he based Mary Corleone on her, it seemed like a good idea at the moment.