both puzo and coppola worked on the screenplay separately. paramount paid puzo $100,000 to write the script. puzo wanted to stick to his book. this was the first screenplay puzo had written. coppola wanted to emphasize the themes of culture, character, power, and family. coppola created a booklet with pages from "the godfather" and made notes on 50 scenes. the final script was completed on march 29, 1971 and was 163 pages long. the italian-american civil rights league, led by joseph colombo, wanted words like "mafia" and "cosa nostra" not to be used in the film. any of these words in the script were replaced with other words.