warren beatty

Warren Beatty’s long-developing film about legendary director Howard Hughes is finally preparing to hit theaters, eyeing a fall / winter release this year — that’s excellent news, not only because the actor hasn’t had a major role since 1998's Bulworth, but because the Hughes film has long been a passion project for Beatty. But the untitled Hughes film isn’t the only project he has in mind, as Beatty is “very serious” about possibly returning to one of his older, beloved roles. Unfortunately, it’s not a sequel to The Parallax View.

A few weeks ago, Matt Wilson and I watched Dick Tracy, the 1990 adaptation of the classic comic strip, directed, produced by and starring Warren Beatty. It's a pretty interesting movie, something that Beatty had wanted to do since the '70s that was clearly styled as a reaction to the success of Batman '89, a strange and ambitious project with a whole lot of fascinating flaws. But what's even stranger is the half-hour special that aired 18 years later, where Beatty reprized his role so that he could be interviewed, in character, by Leonard Maltin.

News broke late last week that the film rights to the classic Dick Tracy comic strip character will be retained by actor and filmmaker Warren Beatty, thanks to a court ruling in a long-running legal battle with the copyright owner Tribune, Inc...