Francis Ford Coppola


Francis Ford Coppola is an American retired film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was a central figure in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
After directing The Rain People in 1969, Coppola co-wrote Patton, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with Edmund H. North. Coppola's reputation as a filmmaker was cemented with the release of The Godfather. The film revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, and was adored by the public and critics alike. The Godfather won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Godfather Part II, which followed in 1974, became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, the film brought Coppola three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture, and made him the second director to be so honored three times for the same film. The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His next film, Apocalypse Now, which notoriously had a lengthy and strenuous production, was widely acclaimed for its vivid depiction of the Vietnam War. The film won the Palme d'Or, making Coppola one of only eight filmmakers to have won that award twice.
His best-known films released since the start of the 1980s are the dramas The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, the crime dramas The Cotton Club and The Godfather Part III, and the horror film Bram Stoker's Dracula. A number of Coppola's relatives and children have become famous actors and filmmakers in their own right: his sister is the actress Talia Shire; his daughter Sofia Coppola and granddaughter Gia Coppola are directors, and the actors Jason Schwartzman and Nicolas Cage are his nephews. Coppola resides in Napa, California.
Since the 2010s, Coppola is a winer and owns a family-brand as well as a winery of his own.

Early life

Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, to father Carmine Coppola, a flutist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and mother Italia Coppola. Coppola is the middle of three children: his older brother was August Coppola, his younger sister is actress Talia Shire. Born into a family of Italian immigrant ancestry, his paternal grandparents came to the United States from Bernalda, Basilicata. His maternal grandfather, popular Italian composer Francesco Pennino, emigrated from Naples, Italy. Coppola received his middle name in honor of Henry Ford, not only because he was born in the Henry Ford Hospital but also because of his father's association with the automobile manufacturer. At the time of Coppola's birth, his father was a flutist as well as arranger and assistant orchestra director for The Ford Sunday Evening Hour, an hour-long concert music radio series sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. Two years after Coppola's birth, his father was named principal flutist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and the family moved to New York, settling in Woodside, Queens, where Coppola spent the remainder of his childhood.
Having contracted polio as a boy, Coppola was bedridden for large periods of his childhood, allowing him to indulge his imagination with homemade puppet theater productions. Reading A Streetcar Named Desire at age 15 was instrumental in developing his interest in theater. Eager to be involved in film, he created 8mm features edited from home movies with such titles as The Rich Millionaire and The Lost Wallet. As a child, Coppola was a mediocre student, but he was so interested in technology and engineering that his friends nicknamed him "Science". Trained initially for a career in music, he became proficient on the tuba and won a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy. Overall, Coppola attended 23 other schools before he eventually graduated from Great Neck High School. He entered Hofstra College in 1955 with a major in theater arts. There he was awarded a scholarship in playwriting. This furthered his interest in directing theater despite the disapproval of his father, who wanted him to study engineering. Coppola was profoundly impressed after seeing Sergei Eisenstein's , especially with the movie's quality of editing. It was at this time Coppola decided he would go into cinema rather than theater. Coppola says he was tremendously influenced to become a writer early on by his brother, August. Coppola also gives credit to the work of Elia Kazan and for its influence on him as a director. Amongst Coppola's classmates at Hofstra were James Caan, Lainie Kazan and radio artist Joe Frank. He later cast Lainie Kazan in One from the Heart and Caan in The Rain People and The Godfather.
While pursuing his bachelor's degree, Coppola was elected president of the university's drama group, The Green Wig, and its musical comedy club, the Kaleidoscopians. He then merged the two into The Spectrum Players and under his leadership, they staged a new production each week. Coppola also founded the cinema workshop at Hofstra and contributed prolifically to the campus literary magazine. He won three D. H. Lawrence Awards for theatrical production and direction and received a Beckerman Award for his outstanding contributions to the school's theater arts division. While a graduate student, one of his teachers was Dorothy Arzner, whose encouragement Coppola later acknowledged as pivotal to his film career.

Career

1960s

After earning his theater arts degree from Hofstra in 1960, Coppola enrolled in UCLA Film School. There he directed a short horror film called The Two Christophers, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson", and Ayamonn the Terrible, a film about a sculptor's nightmares coming to life, before directing the experimental softcore comedy Tonight for Sure in 1962.
At UCLA, Coppola met undergraduate film major Jim Morrison. He later used Morrison's song "The End" in Apocalypse Now.
The company that hired him for Tonight for Sure brought him back to re-cut a German film titled directed by Fritz Umgelter. He added some new 3-D color footage and earned a writer's and director's credit for The Bellboy and the Playgirls, also a box-office failure. Coppola was hired as an assistant by Roger Corman and his first job for Corman was to dub and re-edit a Russian science fiction film, Nebo zovyot, which he turned into a sex-and-violence monster movie entitled Battle Beyond the Sun, released in 1962. Impressed by Coppola's perseverance and dedication, Corman hired him as dialogue director on Tower of London, sound man for The Young Racers and associate producer of The Terror.
While on location in Ireland for The Young Racers in 1963, Corman, ever alert for an opportunity to produce a decent movie on a shoestring budget, persuaded Coppola to make a low-budget horror movie with funds left over from the movie. Coppola wrote a brief draft story idea in one night, incorporating elements from Hitchcock's Psycho, and the result impressed Corman enough to give him the go-ahead. On a budget of $40,000, Coppola directed in a period of nine days Dementia 13, his first feature from his own screenplay. The film recouped its expenses and later became a cult film among horror buffs. It was on the sets of Dementia 13 that he met his future wife Eleanor Jessie Neil.
In 1965, Coppola won the annual Samuel Goldwyn Award for the best screenplay written by a UCLA student. This secured him a job as a scriptwriter with Seven Arts. In between, he co-wrote the scripts for This Property Is Condemned and Is Paris Burning?. However, with fame still eluding him and partly out of desperation, Coppola bought the rights to the David Benedictus novel You're a Big Boy Now and fused it with a story idea of his own, resulting in You're a Big Boy Now. This was his UCLA thesis project that also received a theatrical release via Warner Bros. This movie earned critical acclaim; Geraldine Page was nominated for an Oscar, as well as a Golden Globe Award, for her performance. It also earned Coppola his Master of Fine Arts Degree from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1967.
Following the success of You're a Big Boy Now, Coppola was offered the reins of the movie version of the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark in her first American film and veteran Fred Astaire. Producer Jack L. Warner was nonplussed by Coppola's shaggy-haired, bearded, "hippie" appearance and generally left him to his own devices. He took his cast to the Napa Valley for much of the outdoor shooting, but these scenes were in sharp contrast to those obviously filmed on a Hollywood soundstage, resulting in a disjointed look to the film. Dealing with outdated material at a time when the popularity of film musicals was already on the downslide, Coppola's result was only semi-successful, although Clark received a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination. The film introduced to him George Lucas, who became his lifelong friend as well as production assistant in his next film The Rain People in 1969. It was written, directed and initially produced by Coppola himself, though as the movie advanced, he exceeded his budget and the studio had to underwrite the remainder of the movie. The film won the Golden Shell at the 1969 San Sebastian Film Festival.
In 1969, Coppola took it upon himself to subvert the studio system which he felt had stifled his visions, intending to produce mainstream pictures to finance off-beat projects and give first-time directors their chance to direct. He decided he would name his future studio "Zoetrope" after receiving a gift of zoetropes from Mogens Scot-Hansen, founder of a studio called Lanterna Film and owner of a famous collection of early motion picture-making equipment. While touring Europe, Coppola was introduced to alternative filmmaking equipment and inspired by the bohemian spirit of Lanterna Film, he decided he would build a deviant studio that would conceive and implement creative, unconventional approaches to filmmaking. Upon his return home, Coppola and George Lucas searched for a mansion in Marin County to house the studio. However, in 1969, with equipment flowing in and no mansion found yet, the first home for Zoetrope Studio became a warehouse in San Francisco on Folsom Street. The studio went on to become an early adopter of digital filmmaking, including some of the earliest uses of HDTV. In his book The American Cinema, Andrew Sarris wrote, " is probably the first reasonably talented and sensibly adaptable directorial talent to emerge from a university curriculum in film-making... may be heard from more decisively in the future."

1970s

Coppola was at the forefront of a group of filmmakers known as the "New Hollywood" that emerged in the early 1970s with ideas that challenged conventional film-making. The group included Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman and George Lucas.

''Patton'' (1970)

Coppola co-wrote the script for Patton in 1970 along with Edmund H. North. This earned him his first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. However, it was not easy for Coppola to convince Franklin J. Schaffner that the opening scene would work. Coppola later revealed in an interview:
"When the title role was offered to George C. Scott, he remembered having read Coppola's screenplay earlier. He stated flatly that he would accept the part only if they used Coppola's script. 'Scott is the one who resurrected my version,' says Coppola."
The movie opens with Scott's rendering of Patton's famous military "Pep Talk" to members of the Third Army, set against a huge American flag. Coppola and North had to tone down Patton's actual language to avoid an R rating; in the opening monolog, the word "fornicating" replaced "fucking" when criticizing The Saturday Evening Post. Over the years, this opening monolog has become an iconic scene and has spawned parodies in numerous films, political cartoons and television shows.

''The Godfather'' (1972)

The release of The Godfather in 1972 was a milestone in cinema. The near 3-hour-long epic, which chronicled the saga of the Corleone family, received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and fetched Coppola the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, which he shared with Mario Puzo and two Golden Globe Awards: for Best Director and Best Screenplay. However, Coppola faced several difficulties while filming The Godfather. He was not Paramount's first choice to direct the movie; Italian director Sergio Leone was initially offered the job, but declined in order to direct his own gangster opus, Once Upon a Time in America. Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer and made What's Up, Doc? instead; Bogdanovich has often said that he would have cast Edward G. Robinson in the lead had he accepted the film. According to Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, Coppola also did not initially want to direct the film because he feared it would glorify the Mafia and violence and thus reflect poorly on his Sicilian and Italian heritage; on the other hand, Evans specifically wanted an Italian-American to direct the film because his research had shown that previous films about the Mafia that were directed by non-Italians had fared dismally at the box office and he wanted to, in his own words, "smell the spaghetti". When Coppola hit upon the idea of making it a metaphor for American capitalism, however, he eagerly agreed to take the helm.
There was disagreement between Paramount and Coppola on the issue of casting; Coppola stuck to his plan of casting Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, though Paramount wanted either Ernest Borgnine or Danny Thomas. At one point, Coppola was told by the then-president of Paramount that "Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture". After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production. Coppola chose Brando over Ernest Borgnine on the basis of Brando's screen test, which also won over the Paramount leadership. Brando later won an Academy Award for his portrayal, which he refused to accept. Coppola would later recollect:
After it was released, the film received widespread praise. It went on to win multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola. The film routinely features at the top in various polls for the greatest movies ever. It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In addition, it was ranked third, behind Citizen Kane, and Casablanca on the initial AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list by the American Film Institute. It was moved up to second when the list was published again, in 2008. Director Stanley Kubrick believed that The Godfather was possibly the greatest movie ever made and had without question the best cast.

''The Conversation'' (1974)

Coppola's next film, The Conversation, further cemented his position as one of the most talented auteurs of Hollywood. The movie was partly influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup and generated much interest when news leaked that the film utilized the very same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon administration used to spy on political opponents prior to the Watergate scandal. Coppola insisted that this was purely coincidental. The script for The Conversation was completed in the mid-1960s ; the spying equipment used in the film was developed through research and use of technical advisers and not by newspaper stories about the Watergate break-in. However, the audience interpreted the film to be a reaction to both the Watergate scandal and its fallout. The movie was a critical success and Coppola won his first Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.

''The Great Gatsby'' (1974)

During the filming of The Conversation, Coppola wrote the screenplay for The Great Gatsby. However, in the commentary track to the DVD of The Godfather Coppola states, "I don't think that script was made."

''The Godfather Part II'' (1974)

Coppola shot The Godfather Part II parallel to The Conversation and it was the last major American motion picture to be filmed in Technicolor. George Lucas commented on the film after its five-hour-long preview, telling Coppola: "You have two films. Take one away, it doesn't work", referring to the movie's portrayal of two parallel storylines; one of a young Vito Corleone and the other of his son Michael. In the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film, Coppola states that this film was the first major motion picture to use "Part II" in its title. Paramount was initially opposed to his decision to name the movie The Godfather Part II. According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title, as the audience would supposedly believe that, having already seen The Godfather, there was little reason to see an addition to the original story. However, the success of The Godfather Part II began the Hollywood tradition of numbered sequels. The movie was released in 1974 and went on to receive tremendous critical acclaim, with many deeming it superior to its predecessor. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and received 6 Oscars, including 3 for Coppola: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.
The Godfather Part II is ranked as the No. 1 greatest movie of all time in TV Guide's "50 Best Movies of All Time" and is ranked at No. 7 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time". The film is also featured on movie critic Leonard Maltin's list of the "100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century", as well as Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list. It was also featured on Sight & Sound's list of the ten greatest films of all time in 2002, ranking at No. 4.
Coppola was the third director to have two nominations for Best Picture in the same year. Victor Fleming was the first in 1939 with Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz; Alfred Hitchcock repeated the feat the next year with Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca. Since Coppola, two other directors have done the same: Herbert Ross in 1977 with The Goodbye Girl and The Turning Point, and Steven Soderbergh in 2000 with Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Coppola, however, is the only one to have produced the pictures.

''Apocalypse Now'' (1979)

Following the success of The Godfather, The Conversation and The Godfather Part II, Coppola began filming Apocalypse Now, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness set in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The production of the film was plagued by numerous problems, including typhoons, nervous breakdowns, the firing of Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen's heart attack, and extras from the Philippine military and half of the supplied helicopters leaving in the middle of scenes to go fight rebels. It was delayed so often it was nicknamed Apocalypse When? The 1991 documentary film ', directed by Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, chronicles the difficulties the crew went through making Apocalypse Now and features behind-the-scenes footage filmed by Eleanor. After filming Apocalypse Now, Coppola famously stated: "We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little, we went insane."
The film was overwhelmingly lauded by critics when it finally appeared in 1979 and was selected for the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d'Or along with The Tin Drum, directed by Volker Schlöndorff. When the film screened at Cannes, he quipped: "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam." Apocalypse Nows reputation has grown in time and it is now regarded by many as a masterpiece of the New Hollywood era and is frequently cited as one of the greatest movies ever made. Roger Ebert considered it to be the finest film on the Vietnam War and included it in his list for the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest movies ever made.
In 2001, Coppola re-released Apocalypse Now as Apocalypse Now Redux, restoring several sequences lost from the original 1979 cut of the film, thereby expanding its length to 200 minutes.
In 2019, Coppola re-released Apocalypse Now once more as Apocalypse Now '', claiming that version to be his favorite.

1980s

''One from the Heart'' (1982)

Apocalypse Now marked the end of the golden phase of Coppola's career. His musical fantasy One from the Heart, although pioneering the use of video-editing techniques which are standard practice in the film industry today, ended with a disastrous box-office gross of US$636,796 against a US$26 million budget, far from enough to recoup the costs incurred in the production of the movie and he was forced to sell his 23-acre Zoetrope Studio in 1983. He would spend the rest of the decade working to pay off his debts. Zoetrope Studios finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990, after which its name was changed to American Zoetrope.

''Hammett'' (1982)

Following One from the Hearts failure, Coppola co-directed Hammett along with Wim Wenders in the same year. Although Coppola was not credited for his effort, according to one source, "by the time the final version was released in 1982, only 30 percent of Wenders' footage remained and the rest was completely reshot by Coppola, whose mere 'executive producer' credit is just a technicality."

''The Outsiders'' (1983)

In 1983, he directed The Outsiders, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton. Coppola credited his inspiration for making the film to a suggestion from middle school students who had read the novel. The Outsiders is notable for being the breakout film for a number of young actors who would go on to become major stars. These included major roles for Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell. Also in the cast were Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane and Tom Cruise. Matt Dillon and several others also starred in Coppola's related film, Rumble Fish, which was also based on a S. E. Hinton novel and filmed at the same time as The Outsiders on-location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Carmine Coppola wrote and edited the musical score, including the title song "Stay Gold", which was based upon a famous Robert Frost poem and performed for the movie by Stevie Wonder. The film was a moderate box-office success, drawing a revenue of $25 million against a budget of $10 million.

''Rumble Fish'' (1983)

Rumble Fish was based on the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Shot in black-and-white as an homage to German expressionist films, Rumble Fish centers on the relationship between a revered former gang leader and his younger brother, Rusty James. The film bombed at the box office, earning a meager $2.5 million against a budget of $10 million and once again aggravated Coppola's financial troubles.

''The Cotton Club'' (1984)

In 1984 Coppola directed the Robert Evans-produced The Cotton Club. The film was nominated for several awards, including Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Picture and the Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Art-Direction. However, the film failed miserably at the box-office, recouping only $25.9 million of the $47.9 million privately invested by brothers Fred and Ed Doumani.

''Rip Van Winkle'' (1984)

The same year he directed an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre entitled Rip Van Winkle, where Harry Dean Stanton played the lead role.

''Captain EO'' (1986)

In 1986, Coppola directed Captain EO, a 17-minute space fantasy for Disney theme parks executive produced by George Lucas, starring singer Michael Jackson.

''Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986)

In 1986 Coppola released the comedy Peggy Sue Got Married starring Kathleen Turner, Coppola's nephew Nicolas Cage, and Jim Carrey. Much like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, Peggy Sue Got Married centered around teenage youth. The film earned Coppola positive feedback and provided Kathleen Turner her first and only Oscar nomination. It was the first box-office success for Coppola since Apocalypse Now and the film ranked number 17 on Entertainment Weeklys list of "50 Best High School Movies".

''Gardens of Stone'' (1987)

The following year, Coppola re-teamed with James Caan for Gardens of Stone, but the film was overshadowed by the death of Coppola's eldest son Gian-Carlo Coppola during the film's production. The movie was not a critical success and performed poorly at the box office, earning only $5.6 million against a budget of $13 million.

''Tucker: The Man and His Dream'' (1988)

Coppola directed Tucker: The Man and His Dream the following year. A biopic based on the life of Preston Tucker and his attempt to produce and market the Tucker '48, Coppola had originally conceived the project as a musical with Marlon Brando after the release of The Godfather Part II. Ultimately it was Jeff Bridges who played the role of Preston Tucker. Budgeted at $24 million, the film received positive reviews and earned three nominations at the 62nd Academy Awards, although its $19.65 million box office was a disappointment. Two awards came its way: Martin Landau won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and Dean Tavoularis took BAFTA's honors for Best Production Design.

''New York Stories'' (1989)

In 1989, Coppola teamed up with fellow Oscar-winning directors Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen for an anthology film called New York Stories. Coppola directed the Life Without Zoë segment, starring his sister Talia Shire and also co-wrote the film with his daughter Sofia Coppola. Life Without Zoë was mostly panned by critics and was generally considered the segment that brought the film's overall quality down. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a particularly scathing review, stating that "It's impossible to know what Francis Coppola's Life Without Zoë is. Co-written with his daughter Sofia, the film is a mystifying embarrassment; it's by far the director's worst work yet."

1990s

''The Godfather Part III'' (1990)

In 1990, he released the third and final chapter of The Godfather series: The Godfather Part III. Coppola felt that the first two films had told the complete Corleone saga. Coppola intended Part III to be an epilogue to the first two films. In his audio commentary for Part II, he stated that only a dire financial situation caused by the failure of One from the Heart compelled him to take up Paramount's long-standing offer to make a third installment. Coppola and Puzo preferred the title The Death of Michael Corleone, but Paramount Pictures found that unacceptable. While not as critically acclaimed as the first two films, it was still a box office success, earning $136 million against a budget of $54 million. Some reviewers criticized the casting of Coppola's daughter Sofia, who had stepped into the leading role of Mary Corleone which had been abandoned by Winona Ryder just as filming began. Despite this, The Godfather Part III went on to gather 7 Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture. The film failed to win any of these awards, the only film in the trilogy to do so.

''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992)

In 1992, Coppola directed and produced Bram Stoker's Dracula. Adapted from Bram Stoker's novel, it was intended to be more faithful to the book than previous film adaptations. Coppola cast Gary Oldman in the film's title role, with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins in supporting roles. The movie became a box-office hit, grossing $82,522,790 domestically, making it the 15th highest-grossing film of the year. It fared even better overseas grossing $133,339,902 for a total worldwide gross of $215,862,692 against a budget of $40 million, making it the 9th highest-grossing film of the year worldwide. The film won Academy Awards for Costume Design, Makeup and Sound Editing.

''Jack'' (1996)

Coppola's next project was Jack, which was released on August 9, 1996. It starred Robin Williams as Jack Powell, a ten-year-old boy whose cells are growing at four times the normal rate, so at the age of ten he looks like a 40-year-old man. With Diane Lane, Brian Kerwin and Bill Cosby, Jack also featured Jennifer Lopez, Fran Drescher and Michael McKean in supporting roles. Although a moderate box-office success, grossing $58 million domestically on an estimated $45 million budget, it was panned by critics, many of whom disliked the film's abrupt contrast between actual comedy and tragic melodrama. It was also unfavourably compared with the 1988 film Big, in which Tom Hanks also played a child in a grown man's body. Most critics felt that the screenplay was poorly written, not funny and the dramatic material was unconvincing and unbelievable. Other critics felt that Coppola was too talented to be making this type of film. Although ridiculed for making the film, Coppola has defended it, saying he is not ashamed of the final cut of the movie. He had been friends with Robin Williams for many years and had always wanted to work with him as an actor. When Williams was offered the screenplay for Jack, he said he would only agree to do it if Coppola agreed to sign on as director.

''The Rainmaker'' (1997)

The last film Coppola directed in the 1990s, The Rainmaker was based on the 1995 novel of the same name by John Grisham. An ensemble courtroom drama, the film was well received by critics, earning an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave The Rainmaker three stars out of four, remarking: "I have enjoyed several of the movies based on Grisham novels... but I've usually seen the storyteller's craft rather than the novelist's art being reflected. By keeping all of the little people in focus, Coppola shows the variety of a young lawyer's life, where every client is necessary and most of them need a lot more than a lawyer." James Berardinelli also gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "the intelligence and subtlety of The Rainmaker took me by surprise" and that the film "stands above any other filmed Grisham adaptation". Grisham said of the film, "To me it's the best adaptation of any of ... I love the movie. It's so well done." The film grossed about $45 million domestically. This would be more than the estimated production budget of $40 million, but a disappointment compared with previous films adapted from Grisham novels.

''Pinocchio'' dispute with Warner Bros.

In the late 1980s, Coppola started considering concepts for a motion picture based upon the 19th-century novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, and in 1991 Coppola and Warner Bros. began discussing the project as well as two others involving the life of J. Edgar Hoover and the children's novel The Secret Garden. These discussions led to negotiations for Coppola to both produce and direct the Pinocchio project for Warners, as well as The Secret Garden and Hoover, which never came to fruition.
But, in mid-1991, Coppola and Warners came to disagreement over the compensation to be paid to Coppola for his directing services on Pinocchio. The parties deferred this issue and finally a settlement was reached in 1998, when the jurors in the resultant court case awarded Coppola $20 million as compensation for losing the Pinocchio film project. However, they also awarded him a further $60 million in punitive damages on top, stemming from his charges that Warner Bros. sabotaged his intended version. This is the largest civil financial verdict ever against a Hollywood studio.

''Contact'' dispute with Carl Sagan/Warner Bros.

During the filming of Contact on December 28, 1996, Coppola filed a lawsuit against Carl Sagan and Warner Bros. Sagan had died a week earlier and Coppola claimed that Sagan's novel Contact was based on a story the pair had developed for a television special back in 1975, titled First Contact. Under their development agreement, Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project with American Zoetrope and Children's Television Workshop Productions, as well as any novel Sagan would write. The TV program was never produced, but in 1985, Simon & Schuster published Sagan's Contact and Warner Bros. moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought at least $250,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction against production or distribution of the film. Even though Sagan was shown to have violated some of the terms of the agreement, the case was dismissed in February 1998 because Coppola had waited too long to file suit.

''Supernova'' re-edit

In August 1999, Coppola was brought in by MGM to supervise another re-editing of the film Supernova costing $1 million at his American Zoetrope facility in Northern California. This work included digitally placing Angela Bassett's and James Spader's faces on the bodies of Robin Tunney and Peter Facinelli so that their characters could enjoy a love scene. But even Coppola's re-edited version had negative test screening and didn't get the PG-13 rating by the MPAA that the studio wanted. Creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, whose special effects were mostly cut out from the film, said that Walter Hill wanted the film to be much more grotesque, strange and disturbing while MGM wanted to make it more of a hip, sexy film in space and they didn't want a full-blown makeup effects film. "I hope that my experience in the film industry has helped improve the picture and rectified some of the problems that losing a director caused," said Coppola. By October 1999, MGM decided to sell the film. The film was eventually released on January 17, 2000, almost two years later than planned.

2000s

''Youth Without Youth'' (2007)

After a 10-year hiatus, Coppola returned to directing with Youth Without Youth in 2007, based on the novella of the same name by Romanian author Mircea Eliade. The film was poorly reviewed, currently holding a 30% 'rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was made for about $19 million and was given a limited release, only managing $2,624,759 at the box-office. As a result, Coppola announced his plans to produce his own films in order to avoid the marketing input that goes into most films that results in trying to make films appeal to too wide an audience.

''Tetro'' (2009)

In 2009, Coppola released Tetro. It was "set in Argentina, with the reunion of two brothers. The story follows the rivalries born out of creative differences passed down through generations of an artistic Italian immigrant family." The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the film has an average metascore of 63% based on 19 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 70% of critics gave positive reviews based on 105 reviews with an average score of 6.3/10. Overall, the Rotten Tomatoes consensus was: "A complex meditation on family dynamics, Tetro's arresting visuals and emotional core compensate for its uneven narrative." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars, praising the film for being "boldly operatic, involving family drama, secrets, generations at war, melodrama, romance and violence". Ebert also praised Vincent Gallo's performance and claimed that Alden Ehrenreich is "the new Leonardo DiCaprio". Todd McCarthy of Variety gave the film a B+ judging that "when Coppola finds creative nirvana, he frequently has trouble delivering the full goods." Richard Corliss of TIME gave the film a mixed review, praising Ehrenreich's performance, but claiming Coppola "has made a movie in which plenty happens, but nothing rings true." It has made $2,636,774 worldwide, against a budget of $5,000,000.

2010s

''Twixt'' (2011)

Twixt, starring Val Kilmer, Elle Fanning, Joanne Whalley and Bruce Dern and narrated by Tom Waits, was released to film festivals in late 2011 and was released theatrically in early 2012. It received critical acclaim in France, but mostly negative reviews elsewhere.

''Distant Vision'' (2015)

In 2015, Coppola stated "...That's why I ended my career: I decided I didn't want to make what you could call "factory movies" anymore. I would rather just experiment with the form, and see what I could do, and that came out of my own. And little by little, the commercial film industry went into the superhero business, and everything was on such a scale. The budgets were so big, because they wanted to make the big series of films where they could make two or three parts. I felt I was no longer interested enough to put in the extraordinary effort a film takes ."
Distant Vision is a semi-autobiographical unfinished live broadcast project wrought in real-time. Proof of concepts were tested before limited audiences at Oklahoma City Community College in June 2015 and UCLA School of Theater in July 2016.

2020s

''Megalopolis'' (TBA)

In April 2019, Coppola announced that he plans to direct Megalopolis, which he had been developing for many years prior. Speaking to Deadline he said " I plan this year to begin my longstanding ambition to make a major work utilizing all I have learned during my long career, beginning at age 16 doing theater, and that will be an epic on a grand scale, which I've titled Megalopolis". He had planned to direct this movie, a story about the aftermath and reconstruction of New York City after a mega-disaster, but after the city was hit by the real-life disaster of the September 11 attacks, the project was seen as being too sensitive.

Retirement

Since making his latest film, the horror film Twixt, Coppola has been absent from filmmaking and hasn't made any films since. On October 2015, Coppola reportedly confirmed he has stopped making films due to "the escalating rise of superhero films".

Commercial ventures

American Zoetrope

In 1971, Coppola and George Lucas co-produced the latter's first film, THX 1138. Shortly after completion of production they brought the finished film to Warner Bros., along with several other scripts for potential projects at their newly founded company, American Zoetrope. However, studio executives strongly disliked all the scripts, including THX and demanded that Coppola repay the $300,000 they had loaned him for the Zoetrope studio, as well as insisting on cutting five minutes from the film. The debt nearly closed Zoetrope and forced Coppola to reluctantly focus on The Godfather.

Zoetrope Virtual Studio

His company American Zoetrope also administers the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a complete motion picture production studio for members only. Launched in June 2000, the culmination of more than four years work, it brings together departments for screenwriters, directors, producers and other filmmaker artists, plus new departments for other creative endeavors. Filmmaker members can workshop a wide range of film arts, including music, graphics, design and film and video.

Inglenook Winery

Coppola, with his family, expanded his business ventures to include winemaking in California's Napa Valley, when in 1975 he purchased the former home and adjoining vineyard of Gustave Niebaum in Rutherford, California using proceeds from the first movie in the Godfather trilogy. His winery produced its first vintage in 1977 with the help of his father, wife and children stomping the grapes barefoot and every year the family has a harvest party to continue the tradition.
After purchasing the property, he produced wine under the Niebaum-Coppola label. When he purchased the former Inglenook Winery chateau in 1995, he renamed the winery Rubicon Estate Winery in 2006. On April 11, 2011, Coppola acquired the Inglenook trademark paying more, he said, for the trademark than he did for the entire estate and announced that the estate would once again be known by its historic original name, Inglenook. Its grapes are now entirely organically grown.

Uptown Theater

George Altamura, a real estate developer announced in 2003 that he had partnered with several people, including Coppola, in a project to restore the Uptown Theater in downtown Napa, California in order to create a live entertainment venue.

Francis Ford Coppola Presents

Coppola is also the owner of Francis Ford Coppola Presents, a lifestyle brand under which he markets goods from companies he owns or controls. It includes films and videos, resorts, cafes, a literary magazine, a line of pastas and pasta sauces called Mammarella Foods and a winery.

Winery

The Francis Ford Coppola Winery near Geyserville, California, located on the former Chateau Souverain Winery, where he has opened a family-friendly facility, is influenced by the idea of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, with swimming pools, bocce courts and a restaurant. The winery displays several of Coppola's Oscars along with memorabilia from his movies, including Vito Corleone's desk from The Godfather and a restored 1948 Tucker Sedan as used in .
In October 2018, Coppola and family purchased the Vista Hills winery in Dayton, Oregon, and in 2019 renamed it Domaine de Broglie.

Resorts

Included in the Francis Ford Coppola Presents lifestyle brand are several hotels and resorts around the world. The Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize, which from the early 1980s was a family retreat until it was opened to the public in 1993 as a 20-room luxury resort and The Turtle Inn, in Placencia, Belize, ; La Lancha in Lago Petén Itzá, Guatemala; Jardín Escondido in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Palazzo Margherita in Bernalda, Italy.

Cafe and restaurant

In San Francisco, Coppola owns a restaurant named Cafe Zoetrope, located in the Sentinel Building where American Zoetrope is based. It serves traditional Italian cuisine and wine from his personal estate vineyard. For 14 years from 1994, Coppola co-owned the Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco along with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Rubicon closed in August 2008.

Literary publications

Coppola bought out the San Francisco-based magazine City in the 1970s, with the intent of publishing a "service magazine" that informed readers about sights and activities in selected cities. The magazine was unsuccessful, and he lost $1.5 million on this venture.
In 1997, Coppola founded , a literary magazine devoted to short stories and design. The magazine publishes fiction by emerging writers alongside more recognizable names, such as Woody Allen, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, Alice Munro, Don DeLillo, Mary Gaitskill, and Edward Albee; as well as essays, including ones from Mario Vargas Llosa, David Mamet, Steven Spielberg, and Salman Rushdie. Each issue is designed, in its entirety, by a prominent artist, one usually working outside his / her expected field. Previous guest designers include Gus Van Sant, Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, Marjane Satrapi, Guillermo del Toro, David Bowie, David Byrne, and Dennis Hopper. Coppola serves as founding editor and publisher of All-Story.

Other ventures

Coppola stated that The Godfather Part IV was never made as Mario Puzo died before they had a chance to write the film. Andy García has since claimed the film's script was nearly produced.
Coppola was the jury president at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and he also took part as a special guest at the 46th International Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece.
Over the years, Coppola has given contributions to several candidates of the Democratic Party, including Mike Thompson and Nancy Pelosi for the U.S. House of Representatives and Barbara Boxer and Alan Cranston for the U.S. Senate.
Coppola appeared in a commercial for Suntory Reserve in 1980 alongside Akira Kurosawa; the commercial was filmed while Kurosawa was making Kagemusha, which Coppola produced.

Honors

Awards and nominations