The Godfather is one of the greatest pieces of cinema ever produced. You’d be hard-pressed to find very many arguments to the contrary.
As it turns out, though, Al Pacino, one of the movie’s biggest stars, was one of its earliest detractors. Pacino joined Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Talia Shire and director Francis Ford Coppola at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York Saturday to celebrate the film’s 45th Anniversary.
In the hour-long question and answer session, Pacino discussed how he drunkenly suspected that The Godfather would be a flop after filming wrapped.
“Diane and I in that wedding thing… I mean we got so loaded after that wedding scene,” Pacino explained. “A lot of chaos going on there. We got back, and we started drinking and we were just talking about “where do we go from here? We’re done. It’s the worst film ever made.”
Pacino, who played Michael Corleone in the three Godfather movies, obviously couldn’t have landed any farther from the truth on that one. Along with the 1973 Academy Award for Best Picture and countless other awards, Marlon Brando took home the Oscar for Best Actor and Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.