Although there is no need to even consider a remake of The Godfather trilogy is pretty high on the list. For one thing, director Francis Ford Coppola’s endlessly influential mob movies are some of the most universally acclaimed films ever made, so it would be almost impossible to improve on them with a remake.

For all Martin Scorsese directing The Godfather Part II wouldn’t have improved the movie goes to show just how impressive the trilogy’s unique place in pop culture history is. That said, it is still fun to speculate on how contemporary filmmakers would go about trying to reinvent the trilogy’s characters.

Reacher's Paulie Actor, Olivier Richters, Would Make A Perfect Luca Brasi In A Remake Of The Godfather

Richters Has Both The Screen Presence and Commanding Physique To Play Vito’s Enforcer

The intimidating villain of Reacher season 3, Olivier Richters’s Paulie, proves that Vito’s iconic right-hand man Luca Brasi could be recast in 2025. In the original movie, Brasi is played by the stone-faced ex-wrestler Lenny Montana, who gives a deadpan performance that is quietly terrifying. Reacher’s Paulie has a similar intensity, and Richters manages to make even the show’s star Alan Ritchson look like a child thanks to his hulking 7-foot-2-inch frame.

Seeing Richters’s version of Luca Brasi dispatched would be even more unexpected thanks to the star’s towering screen presence.

Richters could effectively reinvent Luca Brasi in a re-imagining of The Godfather, and the bodybuilder’s small roles in earlier blockbusters like Black Widow and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny prove he has big-screen pedigree. Brasi’s tragic, utterly unexpected fate is sad enough in the original movie, where he is introduced as a lethal, skilled hitman and fearlessly loyal confidante of the titular mafia don. However, seeing Richters’s version of the character dispatched would be even more unexpected thanks to the star’s towering screen presence.

Why A Remake Of The Godfather Shouldn't Ever Happen

The Godfather Has A Unique Place In Cinematic History

As fun as it is to consider clever casting ideas for a remake of The Godfather, this would be a terrible idea for many reasons. The Godfather may have changed details of mob life to make its story more dramatic, but the movie’s arrival reshaped cinema history in its wake. Coppola’s recent flop Megalopolis proves that even he couldn’t make a movie like The Godfather in 2025, and the original movie’s style and tone are deeply tied to the aesthetic of the New Hollywood era.

Even if this weren’t the case, The Godfather also assembled a once-in-a-lifetime cast that couldn’t be replaced in a modern reboot. From Pacino to Brando to Keaton to Caan, almost every member of the cast is a superstar whose acting in The Godfather went on to influence generations of thespians after them. The stakes of remaking such an important piece of cinema history are too high for even the most ambitious filmmaker, which is why remaking The Godfather would be a bad idea even with Reacher’s season 3 villain playing the perfect ing role.