Well, I just read it and I can say that I have never been so thankful that the Part III that was made got made.

Has anyone ever read this?

Never even heard of it.

I've read it and gave my opinion about in an older topic, can't remember which one.

It was interesting to see that someone other than Puzo or FFC had ideas about a new story of The Godfather. I very much like Riesner's idea of the Corleones being involved with the CIA to kill a dictator as that also happened in real life. But I didn't like Riesner's writing style and his development of the story.

http://www.mypdfscripts.com/unproduced/the-godfather-part-iii-dean-riesner-draft

The Puzo/Coppola unused script for III is also there too. They are both worth reading.

Yeah, the ideas themselves weren't that bad. But it was in no way a Part III in resolving the issues from the first 2 movies. Michael only had a cameo. Otherwise it was basically Anthony Corleone going all McBain in Cuba. And when Hagen bites the dust late in the movie no one even bats an eyelash.

One thing I did find interesting was that the burglar scene from Riesner's script was very similar to the one that was eventually used in Part III and the name of a character in Riesner's script was used in the unused Puzo/Coppola Part III script.

Yeah, I remember that script pretty well. I liked the basis (the CIA, etc.), but it wasn't fleshed out as well as a Puzo/Coppola script. As far as the burglary scene, it's almost verbatim. The reporter (the Bridget Fonda character) had a much bigger part in Riesner's script, if I remember correctly.

Just finished reading it - yeah, despite all the slagging that GFIII receives, this one would have been much worse. It almost takes the same approach as the despised Winegardner novels, following some new character we barely know, & who doesn't even feel like a GF character, more like one who would be more comfortable in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.
The ones we do care about have little more than cameo roles - change a few names & no one would think this has anything to do with the Godfather at all.

Few little things:

- Rocco Lampone is in it, but wasn't he killed in Part II while he was about to assassinate Hyman Roth?

- the union leader (I'm guessing loosely based on Jimmy Hoffa) is called Danny DeVito!

- as mentioned, the scene with Tony Corleone & the reporter is basically the exact same scene as with Vincent & Grace in GFIII. It's the sole connection between the two versions, but I've seen a few websites that claim Riesner worked uncredited with Puzo on the screenplay of GFIII that was made - anyone know anything about this? (I think they're probably mistaken, assuming that this script is somehow a first draft)