I looked it up and this is apparently true: Warren Beatty produces a couple of schlocky, low-budget short form films every handful of years so he can keep the rights to Dick Tracy as a Fuck You to the studios who fucked his beloved project from the get-go
About as "petty" as Taylor Swift's re-recording complete albums, in order to maintain the rights to her own work?
Hats off to both of them! Beatty bought the film rights to "Dick Tracy", the studios wouldn't let him make a sequel, so he took steps to stop the moguls from hijacking his project. 👍👍👍😅
But didn't Taylor Swift create her albums?
I love Beatty's movie, but he didn't create Dick Tracy, and he shouldn't be able to lock the character up.
That said, though, I think it's hilarious that he does.
You're right: Beatty didn't create Tracy. But he did buy the film rights & sustain initial financial loss. Once foreign box office recouped the money (and especially once it became a cult classic), the movie moguls would've been happy to cut him out (MAYBE offer him the role) and cash in on HIS work
Swift re-recording her albums makes her a ton of money while also saying fuck you to the guy who bought her masters. This is fun because it’s purely a fuck you
And also: literally no one is upset by this IP being unavailable. No one cares at all except Warren Beatty. If he had control for one million years beyond his death it would make no difference except to vengeful (and satisfied) ghost Warren Beatty.
Growing up I found his Dick Tracy blended in naturally with Burton's Batman, and Batman The Animated Series. Dick Tracy also happened to be one of the first major movie / music / marketing / McDonald's promotions I can recall. It left a mark.
The early '90s was really a magnet for the Golden Age aesthetic, wasn't it?
Aside from Dick Tracy and Burton and Timm's takes on Batman, we also had the Rocketeer and movie revivals of the Shadow and the Phantom.
A classic character with plenty of nostalgia attached in an era where companies are desperate to reuse old characters instead of gambling on new IP? Oh, I'd say there are some folks upset by it.
And plenty of folks who'd bite if a studio did toss something out.
I like that even the props say "I really just found whatever shit a propmaster was throwing away because it's too old to use for modern stuff and not old enough to be cool."
Haha, my own bluesky thread gets copy/pasted into a facebook post, screenshotted into another post, and reskeeted back into my own feed. It traveled all around the world and came right back to me. Nice.
I swore never to watch them in the post, but that was before saying so became the most viral thing I've done in years. Hey @teeaitchare.bsky.social let me come on Special Presentation and talk about Dick Tracy revenge sequels.
Ha, I came here after my own due diligence yielded, at the top of the replies to the FBook post cited, for me, a friend's reply crediting you as the source of every word in this post. But they did put a YouTube link in there too. Worthwhile from the 2 minutes watched so far! youtu.be/S0jU1WSf89k?...
I didn't read the whole replies section on FB, just saw this then moved to search your name & find the original post — Kate here is a known quantity as a straight shooter. Haven't sought out the Bluesky post connection, but can link your original FB post w/ 6K shares: m.facebook.com/story.php?st...
Kate is way cool!
(And though I know the importance of crediting, I wanna make sure it is known I was only commenting on this thread because I was amused!)
As much as I loved the original movie as a kid (how the fuck did they get that cast?!), there is no way a sequel could have delivered as much joy as the schadenfreude of reading this petty revenge story just delivered
Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy, the early 90s? Being in this movie would be huge fun, and if the dice had come up it could have been one of those perennials like "Princess Bride." Beatty could have gotten anyone, and he made good choices.
I saw the most recent one on TCM totally unannounced but had no idea this was his thing until a while after. I was hoping for something interesting, maybe even an announcement of something new. Instead it was maybe the most boring 20 minutes I've ever seen on there.
this was the best version I could get - a 1080p single disc release with no special features. Released in 2012 and by the time I found out it had become deleted stock, tracking one down was a nightmare
Glad I own it though
Warren Beaty is the coolest actor I've ever heard of, everyone should go watch his passion project Reds!, which is the film he spent his fortune on producing after he made it in Hollywood
