What makes The Color of Money worth revisiting?
- Legacy sequel: The Color of Money continues The Hustler with Paul Newman returning as Fast Eddie Felson.
- Tom Cruise: Cruise plays young pool hustler Vincent Lauria in a performance that helped establish him as a serious actor.
- Martin Scorsese: Scorsese’s direction makes the pool scenes vivid and gives the film a commercial scale.
- Sequel idea: A follow-up could bring Cruise back as Vince, this time mentoring a younger pool player.
The Color of Money is a 1986 legacy sequel that pairs Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in a story about pool hustling, mentorship and returning to a familiar character. This article revisits the film and explains why a sequel focused on Cruise’s Vincent Lauria would be an appealing next chapter.
Long before Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise starred in another notable legacy sequel: Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. Forty years later, the film still holds up, and with Cruise returning for Days of Thunder, there is another character worth revisiting: pool hustler Vincent Lauria.
Legacy sequels are often treated as a relatively new phenomenon, but The Color of Money connected an earlier film to a new generation of moviegoers. Legacy sequels have become more popular in recent years, with Top Gun: Maverick and the new Halloween and Scream series among the box-office successes. Cruise has benefited from the trend, with Top Gun: Maverick becoming his biggest hit; his announced Days of Thunder sequel offers another return to a familiar role. But Cruise had already appeared in an early legacy sequel: The Color of Money.
How does Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie return in The Color of Money?
The Color of Money continues The Hustler with Paul Newman reprising his role as pool hustler Fast Eddie Felson. The 1986 film follows the 1961 original, in which Eddie tries to beat Minnesota Fats and runs afoul of professional gambler Bert.
The Color of Money brings Fast Eddie Felson back to the world of competitive pool after the events of The Hustler.
In the original film, Eddie is a moody hustler determined to defeat the legendary Minnesota Fats, played by The Honeymooners star Jackie Gleason, who was a skilled pool player in real life. Eddie succeeds, but he also crosses Bert (George C. Scott), a connected professional gambler who warns Eddie never to return to a big-time pool hall.
By the time of The Color of Money, Eddie has retired from playing pool and makes a comfortable living selling cheap whiskey to bar owners alongside labels for higher-end spirits. He spots young pool player Vince (Tom Cruise) beating a local hustler whom Eddie sometimes stakes, played in an early role by John Turturro. Eddie becomes Vince’s bank, much as Bert once was to Eddie, but with a kinder approach.
While Eddie, Vince and Vince’s seductive girlfriend Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) travel and hustle, Eddie’s love of pool returns. Eddie sums up the appeal of the game by telling Vince, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”
How did The Color of Money bring Paul Newman his competitive Oscar?
The Color of Money paired established star Paul Newman with the rising Tom Cruise, making the film a notable event and a formative experience for Cruise. Cruise later described Newman’s focused, professional and grounded manner as an inspiration.
Paul Newman won a competitive Academy Award for The Color of Money.
Newman had starred in major hits including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and The Towering Inferno. He had also begun taking roles that moved beyond his matinee-idol image, earning strong reviews for films such as Absence of Malice and The Verdict. Those films performed financially, but a competitive Oscar remained elusive until The Color of Money.
Newman won the Oscar for The Color of Money, although he did not attend the ceremony. The win was bittersweet after a long wait for the award.
What makes Tom Cruise’s performance different in The Color of Money?
The Color of Money gave Tom Cruise a role in a serious drama alongside Newman and helped establish him as more than a rising leading man. The film was a solid financial hit and contributed to Cruise’s interest in taking on riskier projects.
Tom Cruise plays Vincent Lauria, a young pool hustler mentored by Fast Eddie.
The film helped lead Cruise toward projects such as Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July; his more recent Digger is also described as being in that vein. The Color of Money also gave an early role to John Turturro and a memorable showcase to Forest Whitaker, whose character out-hustles Eddie in one sequence.
How does Martin Scorsese make the pool scenes so vivid?
Martin Scorsese gives The Color of Money energetic pool sequences and showed that he could make a commercially successful film. The best-known set piece has Vince command a pool table with trick shots as Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” plays on the soundtrack.
Scorsese’s pool scenes turn trick shots and competition into the film’s visual centerpiece.
Although Raging Bull received widespread acclaim, it did not make much money, and Scorsese’s follow-up, The King of Comedy, was a notorious box-office disappointment, despite being a great film. Scorsese was then making smaller-scale work such as After Hours. The Color of Money demonstrated that he could bring his directing style to a commercial movie without losing its striking set pieces.
Why would a sequel to The Color of Money work?
The Color of Money still works as a film on its own, even for viewers who have not seen The Hustler. A sequel could revisit Cruise’s Vincent Lauria as an experienced player who mentors a younger pool hustler.
A sequel to The Color of Money could extend Vince’s story through a new mentor-and-player relationship.
The original film’s story of mentorship and pool hustling gives a follow-up a natural direction: Vince could take Eddie’s place and guide a young player. That premise would continue the character’s story without requiring the new film to repeat the original’s setup.
A casting idea for that hypothetical sequel would pair Cruise with someone like Timothée Chalamet as the upstart. A follow-up built around Vince mentoring a younger player is the Tom Cruise legacy sequel the writer would like to see.
What should viewers know about The Color of Money?
The Color of Money is the 1986 sequel to The Hustler, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. The film follows Fast Eddie Felson as he mentors young pool hustler Vince.
The Color of Money links Newman’s returning character with Cruise’s Vincent Lauria.
- What is it? A 1986 sequel to The Hustler.
- Who stars in it? Paul Newman, Tom Cruise and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
- Who directed it? Martin Scorsese.
- What sequel does the article propose? A follow-up in which Vince mentors a younger pool player.
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