Coppola Settles Up

Keeping his friends close and his enemies closer, Coppola settles a lawsuit brought by another film company

By Josh Grossberg Jul 02, 2008 4:08 PMTags
Francis Ford CoppolaSipa via AP Images

All together now...it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

Francis Ford Coppola has resolved a lawsuit brought by a film production company that claimed it had been jilted out of its share of the profits from daughter Sofia's directing debut, The Virgin Suicides.

Muse Productions sued the Oscar-winning Godfather director last November in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging breach of contract and demanding a full audit of the movie's earnings.

According to the complaint, Coppola's company, American Zoetrope, struck a deal with Muse in October 1997 that essentially cleared the film rights to the original Virgin Suicides book by Jeff Eugenides, in exchange for Muse receiving a percentage of the film's revenue.

Muse's lawyers submitted a two-page document to the court stating that a settlement had been reached. Terms were not disclosed, and neither side was available for comment.

Released in May 2000, The Virgin Suicides starred James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett and Danny DeVito and marked the first outing behind the camera for Sofia, who up until that point had been known mostly for her widely panned performance in The Godfather Part III.

The film grossed more than $10 million worldwide and, more importantly, paved the way for the younger Coppola's Oscar-winning sophomore flick, Lost in Translation.