Warren Beatty Has Been Holding A Comic Book Franchise Hostage For 30 Years

After acquiring the film and television rights, for $3 million, to Dick Tracy, the 1930s police detective comic strip about the yellow trenchcoat-clad detective going up against organized crime, Warren Beatty worked tirelessly to get a film produced. Unable to find a director, he decided to do it himself, which lit the fuse that eventually led to a feud with Disney, the studio bankrolling the production. Plans for a franchise went up in smoke as the budget kept getting higher and higher, but Beatty wasn’t going to give up.

In 2002, the original Dick Tracy rights holders, Tribune Media, tried to sue Beatty for the rights back. A few years later, Disney admitted that a sequel was never happening and gave up their share of the franchise back to Beatty. This occurred as the legal battle with Tribune was ongoing, finally reaching a conclusion in 2009, when Tribune Media went bankrupt, leading to Warren Beatty as the last man standing holding the media rights for the entire franchise.

Despite winning in court, there was a restriction imposed by the judge, stating that Warren Beatty had to produce a Dick Tracy project once every few years. As recently as 2016, the star was talking about a sequel, but now, well into his 80s, it’s increasingly unlikely he’ll put on the trenchcoat and fedora ever again.

So instead, Beatty has produced micro-budget Dick Tracy television specials, typically featuring him appearing in character for interviews. These specials have aired late at night, when no one is watching, and are frequently scrubbed from YouTube, making them a bizarre oddity of avant-garde art from one of Hollywood’s living legends.

Dick Tracy touched off a brief comic book movie renaissance in the early 90’s featuring classic characters, including The Shadow with Alec Baldwin and Billy Zane slamming evil as The Phantom. Warren Beatty’s strangest but most insightful directorial choice was to limit the colors used in making the film to only one shade of each color. The result is a very unique look that mirrors the original six-color comic come to life.

The surprisingly successful film, earning $145 million at the box office, which doesn’t include the toys and tie-in merchandise, also boasts a stacked cast. Dick Tracy let Al Pacino cut loose as Big Boy Caprice, gave Madonna a high-profile role as Breathless Mahoney, and included Dick Van Dyke, Kathy Bates, James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, and Catherine O’Hara. It’s one of those movies where a small role with maybe two minutes of screen time, if that, is played by an Academy Award winner.

Until Warren Beatty decides to give up the rights, we’ll never get another Dick Tracy movie or a streaming series, but thankfully, that also means no more video game adaptations. This is a shame, as the slightly off-kilter noir world of the comic detective could be perfect for a modern streaming series. Now that we’re decades into comics dominating Hollywood, going back, way back, to the old pulp serial heroes of the 30s and 40s could be a great way to turn what was old into something new.