"The Godfather Part III" was released on December 25, 1990. Francis Ford Coppola returned as director for the feature-length film, while also writing the screenplay with the help of the author Mario Puzo. It completes the story of Michael Corleone, a Mafia kingpin who tries to legitimize his criminal empire, and shows the rise of Sonny Corleone's illegitimate son Vincent Corleone as Michael's successor. The film also weaves into its plot a fictionalized account of real-life events, which include the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I and the Papal banking scandal of 1981 and 1982, and links them with each other and with the affairs of Michael Corleone. Coppola felt that the first two films had told the complete Corleone saga. Coppola intended "Part III" to be an epilogue to the first two films. In his audio commentary for "Part II", he stated that only a dire financial situation caused by the failure of "One from the Heart" (1982) compelled him to take up Paramount's long-standing offer to make a third installment. Coppola stated that the idea of a fourth had been discussed but Puzo died on July 2, 1999, before they had a chance to write the film. Earlier, on June 21, 1999, "The Hollywood Reporter" had reported that a fourth film was in the works with García in the lead role. García has since claimed the film's script was nearly produced. After Puzo's death, Coppola decided to not continue the film series. Puzo's portion of the potential sequel, dealing with the Corleone family in the early 1930s, was eventually expanded into a novel by Ed Falco and released in 2012 as "The Family Corleone". The estate of Puzo had sought to keep Paramount Pictures from producing the film based on "The Family Corleone". Now resolved, Paramount has gained the rights to make more "Godfather" films. The fourth film was intended to be a prequel and a sequel. They had discussed a potential script, told in a similar narrative as "Part II": with younger Vito Corleone and Sonny gaining the families' political power during the 1930s; and with Vincent Corleone in the 1980s, haunted by Mary's death, running the family business through a ten-year destructive war and eventually losing the families' respect and power, seeing one final scene with Michael Corleone before his death.