The Sting "making of" featurette, "The Art of the Sting", included interviews with cast and crew. The film was released on Blu-ray in 2012, as part of Universal's 100th anniversary releases. The Sting The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed Newman and Redford in the western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Created by screenwriter David S. Ward, the story was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated
The Way of the Gun refuse to accept from a 'sympathetic' leading man." The first ten pages were a prologue, a trailer to another movie with Parker and Longbaugh (the real last names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and was "to be shot as slick and hip as possible. Guy Ritchie and Michael Bay but with horrible, unspeakable acts of violence and degradation." During pre-production, McQuarrie realized that this was too extreme and cut it out. He and del Toro gave the script to several high-profile actors at the time all of whom turned them down. Ryan Phillippe wanted to change the direction