Originally Intended For Redford and Newman
Its one of those "historic things" in motion picture history that Paul Newman and Robert Redford struck the same kind of blockbuster gold twice and ended up one of the great "teams" in movies even as they had long careers apart from each other.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has been marked as the biggest hit of 1969; The Sting was the second biggest hit of 1973 and it took The Exorcist to beat it. In both cases, Newman and Redford delivered bona fide blockbusters with none of the usual needs for such -- special effects, action, gigantic production values..comic book characters...horror (see: The Exorcist.)
Rather , Butch Cassidy and The Sting got it done with two great SCRIPTS. The script for The Sting was far more inventive in plot twists but Butch Cassidy had Grade A one liners for buddies to say. Indeed, Butch Cassidy won the Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay of 1969 and The Sting won the Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay of 1973 and that's saying something in movie history.
But there was more to it than that. Paul Newman was a top movie star for years before Redford made it -- but Redford made it WITH his casting(agreed upon by Newman) as the Sundance Kid. Bigger names like McQueen, Brando, and Beatty had not worked out. Redford is in Butch Cassidy fully formed as a star and he was a VERY big star when The Sting camer around(bigger, noted Redford, than Newman by then, but Redford gave Newman top billing and bigger pay on The Sting out of gratitude for playing Sundance.)
Newman and Redford were among the most handsome movie stars in Hollywood in 1973. They had acting chops -- they were the "Gold Standard" for movie buddies and they had the two blockbusters to prove it(and, oh, The Sting won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1973, beating The Exorcist. )
And I suppose it is a great piece of luck -- for US and for THEM...that Newman and Redford never made another movie together again. They'd struck gold twice -- rare enough -- and as the years went on, they got older, lost their looks a little bit, lost their movie star clout...
Who knows how many scripts were thrown at them back then. I know John Huston offered them "The Man Who Would Be King," but it was NEWMAN (a Huston pal who had worked with him) who said: "no...they have to be British: Connery and Caine." And Connery and Caine were cast.
Before Al Pacino played Serpico the cop against corruption(in The Sting year of 1973), a script was developed for Redford to play Serpico and Newman the cop who teams up with him against corruption. Doesn't sound like a good fit for the Redford/Newman team.
The decades passed and evidently heading into the 21st Century, Redford saw "A Walk in the Woods"as the project to get him and Newman back together. It kept getting mentioned as "a real possiblity" until it wasn't. By 2008, Paul Newman had died and the project ended. Redford later revealed that even when Newman was still alive, he was having too much trouble with line memorization to do the part(why not cue cards? Marlon Brando did.)
Well, it took 7 years but we got the version with Nolte and Redford -- in a movie that included an "ode to the rivercliff scene" in Butch Cassidy. There was some emotion in the Redford/Nolte pairing. They had been duelling handsome blond stars in the late 70s --Nolte revealed that Redford "stole the movie of The Natural from me." But A Walk in the Woods reveals a Nick Nolte far more aged, heavy and facially beat up than Redford. It made for a poignant contrast(for his part, Redford's face had aged badly too, and his tinted hair was no replacement for his blond heyday but...he still had his slender build and his acting mannerisms and his romantic appeal.)
Nolte had already played a cameo in the late Redford movie The Company You Keep before doing A Walk in the Woods with Redford. But "A Walk in the Woods" was a better deal -- a true buddy movie with Nolte amusing showing up in the storyline as the ONE "old friend" willing to join Redford on his hike and -- what a mess. Ha.
As both Redford and Nolte head off into retirement(nice to have them both still alive as I post this), this is a nice little "old guy buddy movie" with a nice twist: you picture Paul Newman in the Nolte role all the way through it -- and in our imaginations -- Newman and Redford are indeed together for one last time.