Robert Duvall is a powerful presence and the perfect antidote to violence and anger in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, and had he been in The Godfather Part III, the movie may have been quite different. Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel has been a cinematic force driving the movie zeitgeist for decades. Now, 50 years after the initial release, audiences have been celebrating and cast members have been reuniting to dish on making-of memories. The Oscar-winning crime epic shaped gangster movies and the Mafia/mob genre, providing a more humanistic and family-oriented angle with memorable characters, particularly that of Duvall’s Tom Hagen.
Hagen is the Corleone family’s consigliere, who acts as an advisor and trusted counsel to Don Vito and serves him and their lawyer. Married to a woman named Theresa and the father to four children, Hagen is the unofficial fifth Corleone child and fourth son after Sonny finds him living on the streets and befriends him as a kid. Despite his German-Irish ancestry, which does not allow him formal membership into the family, Vito, played by Marlon Brando in the first Godfather film, agrees to raise him. Known for his educated background, emotional intelligence, and having a level head compared to all three brothers, Hagen seems like the most obvious choice to run the family.
For The Godfather, Duvall was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar alongside James Caan and Al Pacino, who controversially had more screen time than Best Actor winner Marlon Brando. The character may be best remembered for his negotiation scene, where Hagen heads to Hollywood to persuade a successful movie producer to cast Johnny in his new war film and orchestrates the legendary horse’s head scene to get back at him. As Michael rises to power, however, Hagen is removed as consigliere and becomes involved less and less in the family business. While he is brought on to help negotiate with Hyman Roth in Godfather 2, the first sequel ever to win Best Picture, Hagen’s displeasure over Michael’s coldness creates a rift that is never repaired. It is a fitting and impressively dramatic direction, but the relationship between these two characters never gets a proper conclusion, given Duvall’s absence in the final film.
Why Robert Duvall Wasn't In The Godfather: Part III
Robert Duvall had significantly risen in prominence and demand after the first two Godfather movies. He appeared in some high-profile films, including Network and M*A*S*H, and even earned Oscar gold for his performance in the country music drama Tender Mercies in 1983. Duvall had also kept up a working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, additionally appearing in the director’s thriller The Conversation as well as the Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now in arguably his most celebrated role as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who utters the immortal line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Evidently, there was little preventing the actor from returning for Godfather III, but Duvall admitted in more recent interviews that it was money that stopped him from returning as Tom Hagen. He explained that he was fine with short and fiery co-star Al Pacino earning double what he was getting, but not four times, which is what he claimed happened. Pacino was reportedly paid $8 million, plus re-shoot bonuses, for his performance in the trilogy’s third installment. For the first movie, when he was an unknown, the actor was paid $35,000 for his entire role, which was $1,000 less than what Duvall was paid. Duvall apparently took home $500,000 for The Godfather Part II and was offered a salary of $1 million for The Godfather Part III.
How Tom Hagen Would Have Changed The Godfather: Part III
The Godfather Part III came to be 15 years after the second film, reluctantly taken on by Francis Ford Coppola, who was then was in search of a hit project that could help bring him out of debt. Focusing on Michael’s struggle to hold on to the family business while dealing with immense guilt and a changing world, dealings with previously unknown hitmen, the Vatican, and Sonny’s son Vincent, played by Andy Garcia, make the final movie a confusing letdown. While there are some great callbacks like Michael and Kay’s reconnection, there isn’t enough of the former cast to make the film hold up to its predecessors.
Robert Duvall's The Godfather character appears in both sequel and prequel books in the Godfather novel series, but Coppola has stated a split between Michael and Hagen was the initial plan for the movie’s plot. Instead, the book takes place in 1979-1980, and the character’s absence is explained that he died years before in an unspecified way. Had Duvall agreed to do The Godfather Part III, the movie would have likely dealt less with new characters like Joey Zasa and given Michael a more worthy adversary. Hagen could use more pressure to push Michael out and further test his loyalties and ruthlessness to see how far he’d go in eliminating him. Hagen is also powerful, but not cold-blooded, so it would have been interesting to see that character’s limits, who would also likely have had his own questioning of guilt and loyalty. Their own reconnection could have even possibly saved Michael's family had he left the family business to Hagen and stepped away.
Could Duvall's Hagen Have Saved The Godfather: Part III
While certainly miles ahead of modern Al Pacino movies like Hangman, The Godfather Part III was released in December of 1990 and was met with more than mixed reviews. Critics were let down by the overly complex plot, performances of cast members like Sofia Coppola, and different tone compared to the first two. Despite the reaction, the film earned $136 million at the box office and seven Academy Award nominations. Duvall’s appearance, no matter how sizable, would not have likely changed the reception, though perhaps providing some extra satisfaction to audiences and giving the character a proper ending that he deserved.
Despite the film being more than 30 years old now, Coppola, who is currently self-funding a new movie called Megalopolis, has tinkered with different cuts, including the 2020 version The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. A limited series called The Offer is set to drop on the Paramount Network this April, dramatizing the making of the Godfather films. There is no word yet if an actor does depict Duvall, but his absence would be strange given how important to the films he is. Robert Duvall himself continues to champion the Godfather movies and reflect on his role as Tom Hagen. As for The Godfather Part III, he has gone on record as saying he has no regrets whatsoever about not appearing in that film.