When an author dies, the rights to their work usually pass on to their family or whoever controls their estate. In the case of Robert Ludlum, the holders of his estate chose to allow sequels for his books to be written by other authors, and in the case of the Bourne saga that privilege went to Eric Van Lustbader who went on to pen The Bourne Legacy and five other novels. The Bourne films were made in an era when, though powerful, studios could no longer easily hoodwink intellectual property owners into signing away their babies for nigh perpetuity. Such was not the case when Mario Puzo's The Godfather was optioned by Paramount and then released in 1972. Or at least, that's what Paramount is arguing: that they have a say in the development of any further Godfather properties, whether on the page or on the screen. Mario Puzo's estate doesn't like that idea.
When the Puzo estate began inquiring into the possibility of commissioning new books in the series to be written by contemporary authors, Paramount quickly joined the discussion. They believe that when they signed for the rights of Mario Puzo's books all those years ago, their creative interest wasn't just in the film franchise but the written one as well. Obviously publishing isn't really Paramount's wheelhouse, but the preservation of their films is, and if new films are made and they're not up to the quality of the celebrated trilogy - couldn't that hurt their property? In 2002, they reached an agreement with the Puzos to allow a single new novel, and so The Godfather Returns was published to lukewarm success. That wasn't enough for the Puzo estate though, and so four years later they gave the world The Godfather's Revenge - which did not go over well, both with readers and Paramount (who supposedly had no idea it was even being written).
But the question here, really, is this: Does anyone care about those two novels? Heck, have you even heard of those two novels? Did you know they were even written? We did, but they haven't crossed our minds in 10 and 6 years, respectively. The idea that letting the Puzo estate continue to crank out those novels--by hired guns who don't do the original justice--is affecting the treasured films is a load of bollocks. The only way the poorly conceived literary sequels could ever have an impact on the film legacy is if someone had the bad idea to adapt those books to film using the "Godfather" brand. If that happens, then maybe Paramount has a point.
And there's proof all over the place. Look at any saga where there was a long pause between entries, and there's a good argument to made that making new films (from any new books that might be written in the series) can substantially tarnish the reputations of the original. It happened with Star Wars and the prequels, but then again there's a lot more to that discussion. It also happened with Indiana Jones and the bad idea that was The Crystal Skull. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines? Terminator Salvation? Alien Resurrection?
I think you get the point, and so it's understandable why a studio could be nervous about continuing a franchise movie lovers have long since considered closed. Do we hate Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Empire Strikes Back because of the films that came much much later on? No, but the franchise as a whole is certainly less impressive.
That argument would be fine unto itself, but if by some chance Paramount doesn't control the film rights to a new string of Godfather books and there's a chance that another studio would have the chance to adapt them - then it's hard to take their cries of "artistic preservation" at 100% face value. No one will ever be able to replace that trilogy, the first two films are hailed as cinematic masterpieces (of varying quality), and to think that a new, poorly conceived Godfather film would actually degrade those first three films is a little hard to believe. It would however make for an unpleasant footnote whenever people discuss the great film franchises of all time.
After all, did anyone ever imagine someone would ruin the legacies of the Alien or Terminator franchises? Their motives might not be entirely altruistic, but maybe film lovers should be thanking Paramount for trying to head this off before a fourth Godfather film comes to pass.
