It would be really hard to make a modern-Godfather movie unique or even good.

The Sopranos has already done pretty much everything a modern family/mafia movie could do -- and pretty well. Comparisons and similarities to that show would do the Godfather injustice because without the Godfather there would be no Sopranos, not the other way around.

You'd need a spin to it, something fresh. The last thing we need is a Godfather movie that gives us nothing new. For as much as I do love Part III it is stale, even in 1990 before all the neo-gangster movies and shows came out later that decade.

The only thing I can think of is setting the Corleone family in another time era... like the Civil War... or Vietnam... or fuedal Japan. The same themes in The Godfather could be used in those time eras, but it just wouldn't be so much about the mafia.

I guess it would be like setting a Shakespearean play in a different era, which is done all the time to good effect.