{"id":162456,"date":"2025-09-17T05:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T05:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162456\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T05:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T05:24:07","slug":"robert-redford-tried-to-the-candidate-sequel-long-after-first-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162456\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Redford Tried to The Candidate Sequel, Long After First Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhile Robert Redford<\/a> was no fan of sequels for the better part of his career, there was one movie of his that remained a top candidate for a follow-up, even decades after the original hit theaters. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe legendary actor, filmmaker and Sundance<\/a> Institute founder, who died Tuesday at 89<\/a>, leaves behind a legacy marked by such classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and All the President\u2019s Men. In 1972, he starred in director Michael Ritchie\u2019s political satire The Candidate as Bill McKay, an unlikely upstart candidate for the California Senate race who shakes up the establishment. The feature earned two Oscar nominations, including a win for Jeremy Larner\u2019s screenplay. <\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmaker Rod Lurie<\/a>, who directed Redford (alongside James Gandolfini and Mark Ruffalo<\/a>) in the 2001 film The Last Castle, tells The Hollywood Reporter that he and his star spent years bouncing around ideas for a planned sequel to The Candidate, which followed Lurie having written and helmed the 2000 Oscar-nominated political thriller The Contender. Conversations about a sequel to The Candidate began while the pair worked together on The Last Castle, which focused on a struggle for power within a military prison, and continued for some time after production ended. Although he recalls Redford liking his story idea, Lurie ultimately never started on a draft. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of his hopes was to continue this story of Bill McKay,\u201d Lurie says. \u201cHe\u2019s an infamous developer and works on scripts endlessly. So it was in the discussion phase and mostly, \u2018What was it going to be?\u2019 The two actors that we wanted to have [were either] Denzel Washington and George Clooney. [Redford\u2019s character] would be an ex-president at this time, advising a new candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRobert Redford (left), Mark Ruffalo and Rod Lurie on the set of The Last Castle.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tLurie continues, \u201cWe just spent so many hours discussing it and what he wanted to do, what he didn\u2019t want to do. And then we would exchange letters [after production ended on Last Castle.] It just never came to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Redford changed paths on the possible sequel and turned to Larry Gelbart, a producer on the series M*A*S*H and co-writer of Tootsie, to pen a script. The pair spoke to the New York Times<\/a> in early 2003 about the project, with Redford calling himself \u201canti-sequel\u201d but explaining that the timing felt right to again skewer American politics. He added, \u201cThe truth is so awful, but in its own horrible way, it\u2019s entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Redford would eventually appear in a sequel later in his career \u2014 he reprised his Marvel role of Alexander Pierce in 2019\u2019s Avengers: Endgame after previously playing the character in Captain America: The Winter Soldier \u2014 a follow-up to The Candidate would never get the go-ahead. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut Lurie is grateful to have worked with Redford, praising his work with Sundance and his incredible catalog of films \u2014 with an emphasis on one title in particular. \u201cHe starred in the greatest film ever made \u2014 that\u2019s my personal opinion \u2014 which is All the President\u2019s Men,\u201d Lurie says. \u201cWhen I was on the set of The Last Castle with him, we had dinner three nights a week, and we never really exhausted talking about All the President\u2019s Men.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Robert Redford was no fan of sequels for the better part of his career, there was one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[98268,88,41215,206,97885,98559,98560],"class_list":{"0":"post-162456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-all-the-presidents-men","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-mark-ruffalo","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-robert-redford","13":"tag-rod-lurie","14":"tag-sundance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}