The 5 Actors Who Could Replace Al Pacino As Michael Corleone In A Godfather Remake

If you’re casting a big-budget Hollywood movie these days, there’s a decent chance Timothée Chalamet will be in the running, so we’ll start here. The Bones and All star is currently one of the hottest and most talented young actors in Hollywood and has a lot of experience playing both sides of Al Pacino’s character. 

One of the key things that made Pacino’s portrayal of Michael Corleone stick in the public imagination is that he was essentially two characters: a sensitive, thoughtful family man and a calculating, brutal strategist willing to use any level of violence to achieve his goals. Timothée Chalamet has already shown he can portray a scion of a powerful family driven by desperation to protect his family by becoming a monster in Dune, it seems like he could pull Michael off.

Most audiences will know Jaeden Martell (who is a real person and not a Game of Thrones character, despite his name) from the Andy Muschietti-directed Stephen King adaptations It and It Chapter Two. In those movies, Martell played Bill Denbrough, the de facto leader of the Losers Club, which makes him perfect to replace Al Pacino as Michael Corleone.

In the It movies, Martell’s character is consumed by the murder of his brother by Pennywise the Clown, causing him to be utterly determined to protect his friends and moreover, take wrathful vengeance on the monster that attacked his family. Although Martell may look boyish and frail, it is exactly that unassuming exterior that can hide a mind full of contained anger, just like Michael Corleone.

Noah Centineo is known as something of a young Hollywood heartthrob, starring in a run of romantic comedies on Netflix like All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, and The Perfect Date. In that sense, he would be perfect to portray the romantic side of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, which is an important and under-discussed aspect of one of the most famous characters in cinema. 

In the Godfather trilogy, family is important above all (making it something of a proto-Fast and Furious), and Michael has the warmth, charm, and youthful good looks to bring Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), an outsider into the fold. It takes someone with real charisma and romantic chops to give glimpses of the kind of romantic that would enthrall someone enough to join a tradition-bound world they barely understand.

We know what you’re thinking: Spider-Man as Michael Corleone? It may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that British actor Tom Holland could replace Al Pacino as the head of the Corleone crime family, but it is important to remember that one of the most important arcs of the Godfather trilogy is Michael’s slow corruption by both necessity and power.

Tom Holland is best known for the boyish exuberance of Peter Parker, who manages to hold on to a kind of youthful innocence even after countless battles with criminals, purple aliens, and even other superheroes. Michael begins the Godfather trilogy as a decorated combat veteran of World War II, and tries not to become part of the violent, dark world of his family. Watching Holland slowly lose that innocence and become tarnished by the terrible decisions he must make could be pretty interesting.

And finally, we have Cole Sprouse, the current Jughead of the CW’s sexy Archie show Riverdale. Not only does Sprouse have the angular good looks of Al Pacino in his youth, but Riverdale’s twists and turns have shown that he has the ability to play dark intensity with the best of his generation. 

Cole Sprouse is someone we can easily see encapsulating all of the aspects of Michael we discussed above: the determined family man, the anger-filled revenger, the secret romantic, and the innocent slowly tainted by a world he cannot escape. Plus, Sprouse was born in Italy in real life, which is just a nice little touch.