British newspaper The Independent is reporting that The Sea Inside and Vanilla Sky scribe Mateo Gil is directing a sequel to the 1969 classic Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and The Right Stuff’s Sam Shepard will replace the late Paul Newman in the role of Butch Cassidy. The known plot details, which have Cassidy venturing to return to the States by committing one more robbery before retirement, do not include his partner in crime the Sundance Kid, played by Robert Redford in the first film. According to The Independent, the frenzied shoot-out at the end of the original killed Sundance, but Cassidy survived and has been keeping his identity secret by hiding out for several years with a Bolivian woman and breeding horses, and will team up with Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega for one last crime-filled hurrah. In truth, the fates of the real-life duo Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Longabaugh were never learned. The director Mateo Gil described to The Independent his vision for the reboot as a film about "that tired and lonely old man who, for an instant, recovers all his energy and dreams due to someone who seems to reincarnate the past, his old friends and ideals." The sequel will begin shooting in Bolivia next month.
Join the discussion...