Newman Recruited Scorsese for 'The Color of Money'
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- Paul Newman wrote Martin Scorsese fan mail in the mid-1980s after admiring 'Raging Bull,' pitching a sequel to his 1961 hit 'The Hustler' based on Walter Tevis's 1984 novel 'The Color of Money,' a project no studio was clamoring for.
- Martin Scorsese was in career transition when Newman reached out — his 'Last Temptation of Christ' had collapsed at Paramount under evangelical pressure, 'King of Comedy' had flopped, though 'After Hours' had just reestablished his maverick credibility.
- Newman, Scorsese, and screenwriter Richard Price collaborated on the script in marathon Malibu writing sessions, jettisoning much of Tevis's novel and transforming the story into what the article calls a 'thinly veiled joint autobiography' about reclaiming a lost craft.
- Tom Cruise starred as Vince, the flaky but talented protégé Felson mentors to get back into pool; 'The Color of Money' was released just months after Cruise's 'Top Gun' made him a superstar, and co-star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio earned an Oscar nomination.
- Critics including Roger Ebert received the film as 'watered down Scorsese' and a journeyman studio assignment, though the article argues they missed the parallels between Felson's struggle and Scorsese's own fight to recover after 'Last Temptation' fell apart.
- 'The Color of Money' became one of Scorsese's biggest box-office hits, disproving the assumption that audiences wouldn't show up for a 'Hustler' sequel and setting up the actor-driven pattern that would define his late-1980s and 1990s work.
Why it matters: The essay reframes a film long filed by critics as a lesser Scorsese studio assignment as a deeply personal work about reclaiming the thing you love after it's taken from you — the same predicament Scorsese faced when 'Last Temptation' collapsed at Paramount. For Scorsese's filmography, it breaks the 'one for me, one for them' reading that has dismissed his commercially successful 1980s and 1990s output.
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