Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid "Bonnie and Clyde. ..." we don't believe it, and we walk out of the theater wondering what happened to that great movie we were seeing until an hour ago." The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. Over time, major American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator, gives 89% "Certified fresh" favorable score based on 46 reviews with an average score of 8.2/10, the site's critical consensus reads With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score,
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away." Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it." The role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role; he did not like riding horses, and he felt he had already played too many aspects of