The Sicilian (1987)

Interesting facts

• Based on: The Sicilian
• Filmed in: Sicily

The Sicilian is a 1987 epic historical crime film directed by Michael Cimino. It was adapted by Steve Shagan from Mario Puzo's 1984 novel of the same name, and later rewritten by Cimino and Gore Vidal, who deviated heavily from it. Resultantly, the film bears little to no resemblance to its source material. Christopher Lambert stars as Salvatore Giuliano, the infamous bandit who tried to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule and make it an American state.

Production

Due to the huge success of The Godfather, Mario Puzo was given $1 million for the film rights to his novel The Sicilian. David Begelman, head of Gladden Entertainment at the time, hired Michael Cimino to direct. The original novel features Michael Corleone as a character but contractually he was not allowed to appear in the film of The Sicilian. Cimino's fee was a reported $2.5 million of the $8.5 million budget.

When producer Bruce McNall met with Cimino at a dinner in Los Angeles, he complained loudly about the script and Begelman's interference with casting. Cimino wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to play Salvatore Giuliano after seeing him in The Bounty, but eventually settled on Christopher Lambert instead, after he was told by the producers that Day-Lewis was not well known enough in the film industry for a lead role.

Following two unsatisfactory meetings with Steve Shagan about his script, Cimino heavily rewrote it, enlisting the help and collaboration of novelist Gore Vidal in the process. Shagan later said Cimino "chose not to make the movie I wrote. The guy had his own ideas."

Vidal said that Cimino came to his house in Italy in March 1986 with a script that he had personally written. "I didn't recognize much of what was on the screen," Shagan later said. Ironically, it was Vidal who ended up filing suit against both Shagan and the Writers Guild of America to receive screenplay credit. "I was defrauded of my work," he told the Los Angeles Times. Vidal eventually won the suit against WGA.

The film was shot on location in Sicily in the spring and summer of 1986. In late April 1986, Begelman and McNall discovered that the film was over budget and behind schedule. The problems involved mostly hang-ups with personnel and equipment‍— nothing on the scale of Cimino's Heaven's Gate. One exception was some low-level Mafia men who controlled certain locations and union workers.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.