Cavalleria rusticana in Coppola's The Godfather: Part III In The Godfather: Part III, the “Intermezzo” appears at the end of the film. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and his family watch his son perform in Cavalleria rusticana while his enemies execute a wide-reaching plan for revenge.
The concluding half-hour of Francis Ford Coppola's 1990 film The Godfather Part III shows the Michael Corleone Family attending a performance of Mascagni's opera Cavalleria rusticana at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Sicily.
In the original cut, Michael retires to his Lake Tahoe estate after Mary's murder – then one day slumps over in his chair and dies. In the new cut, everything is set up the same; but Michael is denied an on-camera death. Instead, he's forced to live with the guilt of losing his closest loved one.
Alternate ending: Coppola stated in an interview that he wanted the new ending to be more heartbreaking. Here, old Michael doesn't die physically as shown in the original version's ending. The flashback removes Michael's dancing with Apollonia and Kay.
Michael cradles Mary's body and screams in agony; the scene fades out into a montage of Michael dancing with Mary; his first wife, Apollonia; and finally, Kay. Years later, an elderly Michael, sitting alone in the courtyard of Don Tommasino's villa, slumps over, falls to the ground, and dies.
Hagen was originally intended to have been featured in The Godfather Part III, but was written out due to a salary dispute between Duvall and the film's producers. Coppola stated in the film's commentary that Duvall demanded the same salary as Al Pacino (who portrayed Michael Corleone).
Back at his apartment in New York, as Michael considers how to respond to this hit, he suffers a diabetic stroke, and is hospitalized. During the diabetic attack, in a near-delirium, Michael screams out the name of his brother, Fredo, whose murder he had ordered some 20 years earlier.
The title of The Godfather Coda is meant to highlight that this is an epilogue to the previous movies rather than a continuation and the edit attempts to make that more apparent.
He met his end while playing with his grandson, in a scene where it becomes gradually clear that Vito's health is failing rapidly. The movie sets him up as the best character up until then, thus making it very sad indeed to see Vito collapse and breathe his last.
Toward the end of the film, Michael names Vincent as his successor, on condition that he break off his relationship with Mary. After her brother's debut concert, the assassin Mosca tries to kill Michael. One bullet grazes Michael's shoulder, but the other accidentally hits Mary in the chest, fatally wounding her.
Coppola himself is still around as of now to say that The Godfather Part 4 won't happen, but that won't be the case forever, and when he's gone, others will make the call on how The Godfather is handled as a piece of IP.
He is also mentioned many times throughout the film; the dialogue makes it clear that Michael is tormented with guilt over ordering his brother's death, and that it has alienated him from his ex-wife, Kay (Diane Keaton), and his son, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio), both of whom know the truth about Fredo's death.
After the performance, Mosca shoots Michael, wounding him, and a second bullet hits Mary, killing her. Mary's death breaks Michael's spirit, and he screams in agony over her body. In an epilogue scene set in 1997, an elderly Michael dies in the same courtyard where he married Appollonia.
Anthony, now an adult, along with his mother and sister, Mary, attends a ceremony where Michael receives a citation from the Pope. At the banquet that follows, Anthony, along with Kay, confronts his father, and tells him that he is quitting law school for a career in opera and will never join the "family business".
Fredo's decision is most likely a result of resentment toward Michael, by whom he felt he had been passed over. Michael was Fredo's "kid brother," and the fact that their father chose for Michael to take over the "family business" came as a great insult to Fredo, who was neither as intelligent nor as strong.
However, Coppola playing Mary was not the original plan, as Winona Ryder was first cast, and even flew to Rome to shoot just one day after wrapping production on another film. Unfortunately, Ryder dropped out of The Godfather 3 due to health issues.
Nicolas Cage pleaded with Francis Ford Coppola to play Vincent in The Godfather Part III, and he would've nailed it, but the role went to Andy Garcia. Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III almost starred Nicolas Cage, which likely would have benefited the sequel and made it more memorable today.
Who does Michael have killed at the end of The Godfather 3?
However, Michael was inevitably embroiled in the Corleone empire, so much so, that his ruthless rise to power culminated in multiple repercussions, including the assassination of Fredo, his estrangement with Kay (Diane Keaton), and finally, the death of his daughter.
The Godfather Part III received criticism, partially due to Sofia Coppola's wooden-like acting performance. Winona Ryder was originally cast as Mary Corleone but had to leave the film due to doctor-recommended reasons, which led Francis Ford Coppola to cast his daughter, Sofia Coppola.
Upon discovering that her godfather Don Altobello is the mastermind of the plot against their family, she kills him by giving him a gift of poisoned cannoli. Connie is distraught when her niece Mary is killed by an assassin who intended to kill Michael.
Michael arranges to have Roth killed at the airport where he is about to be taken into U.S. federal custody. Minutes after disembarking the plane, he is fatally shot by Michael's caporegime Rocco Lampone, posing as a reporter. Rocco himself is killed by federal agents as he tries to escape.
After Sonny's death, Don Corleone agrees to lend his political protection to the enterprise and forgive the other families for having his son killed. Although it initially appears that Don Philip Tattaglia is responsible for organizing the anti-Corleone alliance, Vito soon realizes that Barzini is the true mastermind.
At the Long Beach Causeway toll plaza, Barzini's men trap Sonny and shoot him to death. During a meeting with the other crime family dons to establish peace, Vito realizes that Barzini masterminded Sonny's murder. After Michael returns from Sicily, he assumes Sonny's place as Vito's heir apparent.
In the sequel novel The Godfather's Revenge, Hagen is murdered in 1964 by traitorous Corleone henchman Nick Geraci, who ties him up in a car that he sinks into a swamp.
