Money Color on Art: Did you know this is a sequel?

Martin Scorsese’s “Color of Money” is worn by Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. It happens in the world of billiards and fraud. The billiards champion, former selfless Hustler, has become a sales representative for spirits. When he meets a promising young billiards player, his old demons come to the surface … but did you know that this is a sequel?

It all starts with Paul Newman wanting to play the role of a billiardsman, Eddie Felson, who he played in 1961 in The Con Man under the direction of Robert Rosen. At the time, the film was adapted from Walter Tevez’s first novel. Hustler.

It tells the story of how Eddie Felson, a brilliant money player but also a small-time swindler, tries to defeat the legendary Minnesota champion. After a fierce night battle, Minnesota finally won. Now broken, Eddie has only one thing in mind, revenge.

Years after The Grifter, Paul Newman wanted to play this character again through adaptation The color of moneyLiterary continuation Hustler Released in 1984. So the actor wrote a letter to Martin Scorsese, who loved the raging bull, to persuade him to shoot this new Eddie Felson adventure.

The filmmaker gets it, but with some reservations. Indeed, if “Color of Money” is technically a sequel to “Griffter”, because the main character is the same in both films.American film In November 1986, Martin Scorsese denied shooting “Number 2”:

This is not a sequel (…). I read a book, but I did not think enough to make a movie (…). So I said to myself, “I refuse the book, I just keep the title.” I asked Richard if he wanted to participate and he started from scratch.

That’s why novelist Richard Price will drag himself along the pool until he has enough experience and understanding of the game and its players to be able to write a film with Scorsese and Newman.

As for Paul Newman, he announced in 1987 in the magazine Movies and filming :

This is a film that is very personal to me. It speaks to the revival of passion, the competition between youth and old age. Of course, this is not really a sequel to L’Arnaqueur, shot 25 years ago. Moreover, it is an extension of Eddie’s character from another angle.

Twenty-five years have passed since The Grifter, and Paul Newman’s character also stars in The Color of Money: “25 years have passed since I last played”Which corresponds to the 25th anniversary of the release of two films.

The color of the money spread under the Disney banner, through their now-defunct Touchstone distribution company. The Big Ear Studio was the only one to financially approve the project after the rejection of Fox and Columbia. Be that as it may, Scorsese and Newman should have promised a third of their salary as bail if the original budget ($ 14.5 million) was exceeded. This will not happen and they will eventually receive a full salary.

Released in the United States in October 1986 and starring Tom Cruise (the actor who became a star with the release of Top Gun in May of that year), the film grossed more than $ 50 million in North America. The French speech in March 1987 had 1,167,887 participants. As for Paul Newman, he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Eddie Felson.

Bonus information

Tom Cruise had to leave filming to shoot Tony Scott’s Top Gun. Indeed, the studio wanted more romantic scenes to follow Test screeningsWhich were shot in low light as Cruz meanwhile changed her haircut for The Color of Money!