The first cut of the movie was 145-minute long.
Giulio Andreotti saw the film at a private preview screening, and reacted as such: "It's very bad, it's a scoundrel, I would say. It tries to turn reality upside down by making me talk to people I have never met". Paolo Sorrentino later commented: "Andreotti reacted in an angry way and this is a good result because usually he is impassive in front of every event. The reaction comforts me and confirms the strength of cinema compared to other critical instruments of reality".
Giulio Andreotti (1919-2013) served as the Prime Minister of Italy for three terms (1972-1973, 1976-1979, and 1989-1992). He was the leader of the political party "Christian Democracy", a Catholic-inspired Christian-democratic party with centrist positions. The party disbanded in 1994, following a number of corruption scandals, and revelations connecting the party to the Mafia.
Giulio Andreotti was sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "Divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar after his posthumous deification).
Propaganda Due (P2) was a Masonic lodge under the Grand Orient of Italy, founded in 1877. Its Masonic charter was withdrawn in 1976, and it transformed into a clandestine, anti-communist, anti-Soviet, anti-leftist, pseudo-Masonic, and radical right organization operating in contravention of Article 18 of the Constitution of Italy that banned secret associations. In its latter period, during which the lodge was headed by Licio Gelli, P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Holy See-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi, and corruption cases within the nationwide bribe scandal Tangentopoli. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire. P2 was sometimes referred to as a "state within a state" or a "shadow government". The lodge had among its members prominent journalists, members of parliament, industrialists, and military leaders-including Silvio Berlusconi, who later became Prime Minister of Italy; the Savoy pretender to the Italian throne Victor Emmanuel; and the heads of all three Italian intelligence services (at the time SISDE, SISMI, and CESIS). When searching Gelli's villa in 1982, police found a document entitled "Plan for Democratic Rebirth", which called for a consolidation of the media, suppression of trade unions, and the rewriting of the Italian constitution.