The 1972 release of The Godfather broke box office records and changed Hollywood cinema. The film delivered dialogue and a narrative structure that audiences still quote today. The script won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and immediately became an industry standard for aspiring filmmakers. Yet, the man who typed those famous scenes did not know the basic formatting rules of a movie script. Mario Puzo wrote one of the most successful films in history without ever taking a single screenwriting class.
From Best-Selling Novelist to Hollywood Rookie
Mario Puzo was a novelist who wrote The Godfather book primarily to clear his gambling debts. The novel became a massive commercial success. Paramount Pictures purchased the film rights and made an unusual decision. The studio executives hired Puzo to adapt his own book into a cinematic screenplay. Up to that point, Puzo had only written prose. He had absolutely no background in film production or script formatting.
Director Francis Ford Coppola joined the project and agreed to co-write the screenplay with Puzo. The two men developed a unique remote workflow. They lived on opposite coasts and mailed draft pages back and forth across roughly 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) of the country. Coppola managed the technical aspects of the script formatting. Puzo focused on the dialogue, pacing, and character interactions. Together, they finished the script for the first film.
A Double Oscar Winner Seeks Advice
Their unconventional collaboration worked perfectly. The Godfather released in theaters and Puzo took home the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1973. Two years later, he won a second Academy Award for writing The Godfather Part II. He had reached the absolute peak of Hollywood success.
Despite owning two golden statues, Puzo still felt insecure about his technical skills. He believed he was simply guessing his way through the writing process. He decided he needed to finally learn the formal rules of his new profession. Puzo went to a local bookstore and purchased a popular instructional guide on screenwriting. He wanted to understand the correct way to format scenes, build tension, and structure a three-act film.
The Ultimate Screenwriting Lesson
Puzo took the manual home and opened it to the very first chapter. He started reading the introduction to find the secret formula that professional Hollywood writers used. Instead of finding a list of technical rules or formatting guidelines, the author of the instructional book had provided one simple piece of advice for beginners. The very first lesson in the manual simply told readers to study the screenplay for The Godfather.