Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid - Production

Production

The film was originally rated M (for mature audiences) by the Motion Picture Association of America. It was re-rated PG when 20th Century Fox re-released the film in 1974.

The world premiere of the movie was in September 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Forman, among others.

According to the supplemental material on the Blu-ray disc release, William Goldman's script, originally called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, was purchased by Richard Zanuck at 20th Century Fox for $400,000, double the price the studio's board of directors had authorized. The title roles were originally cast with Newman and Steve McQueen, but the latter left after a dispute over billing. The role of Sundance was then offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke starring Newman.. Lemmon, however, turned down the role; he did not like riding horses, and he also felt he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before. Warren Beatty was then considered, as was Marlon Brando, but the role of Sundance eventually went to the lesser-known Redford. (Initially Newman was to play Sundance and Redford Cassidy.) Fox did not want Redford, but director George Roy Hill insisted. Redford later said this film catapulted him to stardom and irreversibly changed his career.

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.