The film was directed by George Roy Hill and produced at 20th Century Fox by John Foreman from a screenplay by William Goldman. The music score was by Burt Bacharach with song lyrics by Hal David. Along with Newman and Redford, the film stars Katharine Ross, and features Strother Martin, Henry Jones, Jeff Corey, Sam Elliott, Cloris Leachman, Ted Cassidy, Kenneth Mars and Donnelly Rhodes.

Production

Goldman’s script, originally called “The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy,” was purchased by 20th Century Fox for $400,000. The two starring roles were originally given to Newman and Steve McQueen, but McQueen left after failing to come to an agreement about which actor would receive top billing. Jack Lemmon’s production company JML had produced Cool Hand Luke in 1967. Paul Newman was grateful to Lemmon for his support, and offered him the Sundance Kid role, but Lemmon turned it down. He did not like riding horses, and he also felt he’d already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid’s character before.^[1] Warren Beatty was considered for one of the lead roles, and Marlon Brando, who at the time had minimal box-office draw, was considered at one point due to his role in an earlier Western, One-Eyed Jacks. At one point, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were expected to star, and they discussed using the new “staggered but equal billing” later introduced for The Towering Inferno. Eventually, Newman and Robert Redford were chosen, but initially Newman was to play Sundance and Redford Cassidy. 20th Century Fox did not want Redford to play the part, but director George Roy Hill insisted. Redford later noted that this film catapulted him to stardom and changed his career forever.

The movie was partially filmed near Durango, Colorado. (The area where they jump into the river is just north of Baker’s Bridge in SW Colorado.) In the scene where a railroad car is blown up, the railroad car was built for the scene out of balsa wood and toothpicks. The budget only allowed for one take, and therefore an unusually high amount of explosives was used. The explosion was huge, and the line “Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?” is reported to be an ad lib, according to locals who observed. (Screenwriter William Goldman included the line when he reprinted the script in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade.)

Butch Cassidy’s outlaw gang was actually called The Wild Bunch, this was changed in the film to The Hole In The Wall Gang to avoid confusion with Sam Peckinpah’s recently released film The Wild Bunch.

Legacy

The Sundance Film Festival, begun by Robert Redford, is named for his role in this film, as is his Utah ski resort, Sundance.

Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill children is named from the gang in this movie.

A prequel to the film, “Butch and Sundance: The Early Years,” starring William Katt and Tom Berenger was released in 1979. The film inspired a television series, Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as two outlaws trying to earn an amnesty. It has also been spoofed in films such as Shanghai Noon and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and TV shows such as The Simpsons (in the episode Duffless), Futurama, The Venture Bros. and Full Metal Panic^{[citation needed]}.

The Sundance Square, a commercial development in downtown Fort Worth, Texas by the Bass Family, is named in honor of the final and most famous portrait taken in that area.

In popular culture

• In the b-side song Sepia by Manic Street Preachers. It includes the lines: “And just like the moment in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid / I’m perpetually stuck in a sepia film / But bleeding inside I manage to keep it all in”.
• In an episode of The West Wing (titled “The Fall’s Gonna Kill You,” in reference to a line from this film), C. J. Cregg (Allison Janney) refers to Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and other senior staffers as ‘Butch and Sundance’.
• In the video game Max Payne, a guard can be overheard saying, “The best movie ending ever? Heh, gotta be ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’. A hero’s end, goin’ out with guns blazing.”
• In the film, A Little Romance (also directed by George Roy Hill), Thelonious Bernard’s character, Daniel Michon, raptly watches the film (dubbed in French). (Michon also watches George Roy Hill’s The Sting.)
• In the film, Mallrats, Sven-Ole Thorsen’s character, the over-zealous security guard La Fours, is a clear homage by director Kevin Smith to the classic Western. La Fours follows the protagonists throughout the movie, and is often seen wearing his white skimmer.
• In the comic book Hitman, Tommy Monaghan, the titular hitman, is talked out of a suicide run by his friend, Natt, who says “it don’t feel like time for Butch and Sundance yet”. In the series’ final arc, Natt calls back to this earlier comment, deciding that it does feel like they’ll go out guns blazing.
• In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer and Marge ride on a bicycle while ‘Raindrops are falling on my head’ is playing in a similar fashion to the famous scene in the film.
• In the film, Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s characters are having a shootout against the “villains” of the film at the ending. The shootout parodies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s shootout as well.
• In the television show Farscape, main character John Crichton (played by Ben Browder) creates an alias for himself and his partner, Aeryn Sun (played by Claudia Black) on an alien planet. “I’m Butch. This is Sundance”
• In the film, The Way of the Gun, the protagonists take on the aliases of Mr. Parker and Mr. Longbaugh, the real names of Butch and Sundance.
• In the film Beverly Hills Cop Billy Judge Reinhold references the movie during a gun battle at the end of the film.
• Miami Dolphins’ running backs Jim Kiick and Larry Csonka were known as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
• In The Fast Show, Simon and Lindsey, the extreme sports enthusiasts, spoof the ending of the film during a paintballing game.