Vito Corleone was created by Mario Puzo.
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a screenplay co-written with Mario Puzo , starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro . Vito Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo 's novel The Godfather and in the first two of Francis Ford Coppola 's three Godfather films , in which he was portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and then , as a young man , by Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II .