(Credits: Far Out / Warner Bros / Ken Dare / Los Angeles Times)
Fri 24 October 2025 20:15, UK
Not many pairings are remembered as one of cinema’s greatest-ever onscreen double-acts by making just two movies together, but Paul Newman and Robert Redford remained inextricably linked for the rest of their legendary careers.
Of course, it helps that the two pictures they starred in were stone-cold classics that were embraced as critical, commercial, and awards season favourites, with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting cementing the ‘New Hollywood’ icons as one of cinema’s most potent star-powered partnerships.
Those films, both directed by George Roy Hill, combined to earn over $350million at the box office and claimed 11 Academy Awards from 17 nominations, with their first adventure as the titular outlaws winning more Baftas than any picture, before or since. That was all they needed to etch their names into the hall of fame for Hollywood’s all-time duos, but the third time never marked the charm.
Newman and Redford were friends for the rest of their lives, and they intermittently discussed another project together. A Walk in the Woods was developed by the latter to reunite him with the man who helped launch him to mainstream fame, but the former’s failing health meant it wasn’t to be, with Nick Nolte ultimately stepping in when the movie was finally made.
Another option on the table would have been the most meta version imaginable. George Clooney and Brad Pitt had become accustomed to being labelled as the Newman and Redford of their time, so what better way to embrace it than by having the veterans play the fathers of their spiritual successors in one of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s sequels?
The franchise was known for stacking its ensemble with as many household names as possible, and since each new instalment in an ongoing series is obligated to up the ante, screenwriter Ted Griffin aimed as high as he possibly could by floating the idea of having Newman and Redford play Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan’s dads. Unfortunately, it was vetoed before any offers could be made.
Since Ocean’s 12 was released in 2004, there was a chance Newman would do it, since he didn’t officially retire until May 2007, with HBO’s Empire Falls and Pixar’s Cars rounding out his filmography. However, as Griffin revealed on the Script Apart podcast, somebody close to the production had no intention of letting bygones be bygones.
“Someone involved in the movie had a very bad relationship with one of those two men,” he revealed. “And told me, ‘Nah, it’s not going to work. They won’t work together.’” Obviously, that begs the question of who was responsible for torpedoing Newman and Redford’s potential third picture, although Griffin kept his lips sealed and refused to divulge their identity.
It’s impossible to even hazard a guess, since there weren’t many direct connections between the would-be guest stars and the cast and crew of Ocean’s 12, but that pettiness robbed viewers of a moment that would have brought the house down. Instead, Soderbergh winked at audiences by having Julia Roberts playing Tess Ocean playing Julia Roberts getting recognised by Bruce Willis as Bruce Willis, and it was bollocks.
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