Trivia / The Color of Money

• The Cast Showoff: Tom Cruise did his own trick shots for the film, except for one in which he had to jump two balls to sink another. Martin Scorsese said he could have let Cruise learn the shot, but it would have taken two extra days of practice, holding up production and costing thousands of dollars. The shot was instead performed by professional players Andrew Ghiatsidis & Michael Sigel.
• Channel Hop: Whereas 20th Century Fox did The Hustler (1961), this film is released by Disney through Touchstone Pictures. As of March 2019, Disney now owns both films due to the Fox buyout.
• Money, Dear Boy: Martin Scorsese has said he mainly did this at the insistence of Paul Newman and to prove that he could make a mainstream studio picture that would be finished on time and under budget. He felt that, despite his minimal input, that it was not a personal picture and he was more or less a "hired gun" on this.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: Martin Scorsese made the film so the studio would let him make The Last Temptation of Christ.
• Role Reprise: Paul Newman, who returned to play "Fast Eddie" Felson.
• Sequel Gap: The Color of Money is both made and set 25 years after The Hustler (1961). It took Walter Tevis that long to write a sequel to the original's novel.
• Similarly Named Works: There was an unrelated song with the same title in the year of its release.
• What Could Have Been: The film deviates from the original novel by making Fast Eddie the mentor to a new young pool hustler, whereas the original novel revolved around Eddie going up against Minnesota Fats once again. Despite this, several drafts of the film nevertheless did include Minnesota Fats in a small part, but ultimately everyone — including Jackie Gleason, who played the character — agreed that he didn't really fit in and so was removed.

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