Case Studies in Intellectual Property: Dick Tracy

[Benjamin Olson]

Alright, I want to clarify what the linked article only obtusely eludes to through a quote from someone's twitter. This is not the first time Beatty has done this with Dick Tracy. He did it before in 2010 with another, not quite so low effort half-hour TCM special (by which I mean I think it was a thing where he planned out and perhaps even scripted things to say, rather than just him riffing while wearing a yellow trenchcoat):

Remembering That Weird TCM Dick Tracy Special | Disney Insider

Find out what happened when Warren Beatty revisited the character of Dick Tracy 20 years after the feature film!

web.archive.org

...which is what I thought was being referenced in this thread. But nope, he's just going to keep doing this every so many years until he dies.

So, legally speaking, there is now a Warren Beatty Dick Tracy trilogy.

 

[MGibster]

... it wasn't that bad. And Max Allan Collins apparently liked it enough to write two novels that serve as sequels to his novelization of the film.

That's a completely fair assessment. In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't that bad and it was successful at the box office even if it wasn't exactly Batman. But then what was Batman besides Batman?

Tier 1 Madonna? Not so bad!
1. Desperately Seeking Susan
2. Evita
3. Vision Quest
4. A League of the Their Own

Nobody's ever heard of Vision Quest. Not even Matthew Modine.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

I wouldn't mind seeing them take another shot a Tracy. But I'm a Throwback Radio Drama nut (Dark Adventure Radio Theater, Thrilling Adventure Hour, Decoder Ring Theater, Batman: The Audio Adventures, Juno Steel) whose favorite childhood (pre-Harry Potter) films were Tracy, Annie, and Roger Rabbit. I think I'm just the perfect mark for that.

 

[Pedantic]

Uwe Boll is a hack. Guy Ritchie is an artist who figured out that there was more money in high budget schlock than art. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Rocknrolla are masterpieces. Pretty much everything else is just Guy Ritchie selling pieces of his soul (for a good price, I should add. I wish my soul were worth that much).

I found the Gentlemen a nice return to form, but generally speaking Guy Ritchie is an overachieving director in the one genre he can do, and just miserable when he tries to do anything else.

 

[Umbran]

Guardians of the Galaxy was effectively a brand new property for everyone except for comic book readers though. It also was a relatively recent property as far as those things go

I fail to understand how these two points go together. If it was effectively new, how recent it actually was seems irrelevant.

 

[Kaodi]

Dick Tracy is probably about as relevant today as Zatara. Which is to note that a Zatanna film was in development very recently.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Would anyone want another Dick Tracy movie!? Did anyone want the first one?

All I want from the first Dick Tracey movie is a yellow fedora with a black band. And I know a guy who could make me one.

…I just haven’t decided if I could muster my ego to actually WEAR it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dick Tracy is probably about as relevant today as Zatara. Which is to note that a Zatanna film was in development very recently.

You can necro dead IPs for ideas, because they are free/cheap. But they aren't worth going to any trouble to acquire.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The 1945 Dick Tracy movie was good for its time and focus.
I haven't seen most of the Republic serials.

I seem to remember the 1945 movie played it pretty straight, without the the fantastic elements. Just an adventure/mystery movie with a police detective protagonist.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Would anyone want another Dick Tracy movie!? Did anyone want the first one?

I still have my commemorative t-shirt from the midnight premiere...