8 Actors Who Quit Movies Because Of Seconds Of Footage
6. Steve McQueen Wanted Top Credits Billing Over Paul Newman - Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
Now we're getting into truly petty territory. Difficult though it might be to picture anyone but Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the roles of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the 1969 western classic originally sought out the great Steve McQueen to play Sundance.
But McQueen had one single grievance with the project - that Newman received top billing over him.
McQueen angled hard for his name to appear first in the film's opening titles, and when a deal couldn't be reached, Fox president Darryl F. Zanuck even suggested an unorthodox compromise: ship half of the film prints to cinemas with Newman's name first and the other half with McQueen's name first.
This wasn't good enough for McQueen, though, who wanted across-the-board top billing, causing him to walk.
As much as actors understandably need to protect their "brand," was it really worth missing out on one of the greatest movies of the '60s because of eight seconds of the movie's opening titles? Ridiculous.