The Lions Roar

REDFORD I think there have always been stars. The fact is Hollywood is a business. It's going to get attracted to things that will be sure to make money, as franchise films do, so therefore you don't blame them for that. Now the question is the individuals. For me personally, there are too many great stories out there to do a sequel. So therefore I don't ever want to do sequels. Well, they push, push, push, push. Finally you say no. Let me put it another way: No. [Others laugh.] And then what do they do? They do a prequel.

CRUISE Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- you go, "What would that sequel be?"

STREEP The bodies, floating ...

CRUISE They want to do a sequel of Risky Business and Top Gun. We even talked about Rain Man. I think that now as a studio [head] and someone who has studied the business, there are times where--the studio would want to try to devalue the artist and communicate that to other people. But in business reality, that's not true, because I know firsthand in dealing with this that you have to recognize market value of artists.

Well, you got this film made.

REDFORD Yes, Tom and the studio took a chance. I can't see anybody else making this film, quite frankly.

STREEP You can't make a film looking ahead to how it will be read in the future. You just make your own little story about your own particular people. But I do think that five years, 10 years, 20 years from now, you could look at this film and see it authentically as where we sat at 2007.