Warning: SPOILERS for The Offer.
George Lucas doesn't appear in The Offer's first 3 episodes and Paramount+'s series forgot his role in the production of The Godfather. Timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola's landmark film, The Offer is a 10-episode series centering on Albert S. Ruddy (Miles Teller), The Godfather's producer, and his struggle to make a film adaptation of Mario Puzo's blockbuster novel. The Offer also stars Matthew Goode as Paramount Pictures' head of production, Dan Fogler as Francis Ford Coppola, Patrick Gallo as Mario Puzo, but George Lucas was left on the cutting room floor.
Before Lucas changed the movie business forever by writing and directing Star Wars, he helped found American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas met Coppola in the late 1960s and served as his assistant. Coppola encouraged his protege to direct his own movies and Zoetrope produced the feature-length version of Lucas' USC student film, THX 1138. However, THX 1138 was a critical and financial failure. Coppola and his company ended up in financial straits and owed money to Warner Bros., which financed Lucas' film. The Offer depicts how Coppola took the job to direct The Godfather as a cash grab to get him and American Zoetrope out of debt to Warner Bros. However, The Offer completely leaves out George Lucas' key role in why Coppola became The Godfather's director.
It was actually Lucas who talked Coppola into taking The Godfather job. Coppola initially felt The Godfather, which was a potboiler best-selling novel, was beneath him. But because their debt to Warner Bros. over THX 1138 was hanging over American Zoetrope, Lucas told Coppola, "I don't think you have a choice, Francis." Coppola took the job at Paramount to direct The Godfather and co-write the screenplay with Mario Puzo. However, after the esoteric THX 1138's failure, Coppola challenged Lucas to direct a comedy and the younger filmmaker accepted. While Coppola went into production on The Godfather, Lucas directed his coming-of-age comedy, American Graffiti, which turned out to be his first blockbuster and gave George the clout to develop Star Wars as his next project.
It's also not widely known that George Lucas worked as an assistant editor on The Godfather. Lucas shot the transitional footage of newspapers that showed how key plot points in the story progressed, such as when the Mafia families "went to the mattresses," and the headline of Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) being shot that Michael (Al Pacino) and Kay (Diane Keaton) saw at a newsstand while Christmas shopping. Lucas also made a major contribution to the pivotal scene where Michael protects his father at the hospital. When Coppola realized he didn't have the shots of footsteps coming down the hallway, Lucas suggested he repurpose extra footage of hallways after the actors left the frame. Lucas helped Coppola assemble the crucial extra few seconds of footage to complete the scene.
George Lucas isn't listed in the cast of The Offer and it's unclear if the visionary creator of Star Wars will appear in future episodes of Paramount+'s series. The fact that Al Ruddy is the show's focus may lead to the overall omission of George Lucas and his contribution to The Godfather. Still, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola remained friends for decades, even after Coppola reneged on Lucas as the director of Apocalypse Now and took the reins of the Vietnam war film himself. It remains to be seen if The Offer will spotlight George Lucas' contribution to The Godfather but Lucas was a big help to Coppola making one of the greatest films of all time.
New episodes of The Offer stream Thursdays on Paramount+.