Just imagine, if you will, a world where a few years after Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy movie, we got a live-action TV series with Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell as Tracy.
It’s a nice world, isn’t it? I’d like to have lived in that world, but it wasn’t to be.
Taking to social media, Campbell revealed that he had a deal with Disney that gave him access to their properties and the one he wanted? Well, I think you can guess…
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The star wrote on social media: It is a great “what if.” I had a development deal with Disney in the 90s & tried to do Dick Tracy as a TV series. Mr. Beatty had other ideas.
So what gives? Well, Warren Beatty, who directed and played Dick Tracy in the brilliant 1990 movie Dick Tracy, has owned the rights to the Chester Gould character(s) since 1985 and, in a bid to ensure no one, including Campbell, who absolutely looked the part in the 90s, left, got the rights, would release various late-night videos with him playing Tracy every decade or so to ensure he legally and contractually fulfilled the ownership requirements.
These were not movies or action scenes but rather just Beatty dressed in the iconic yellow coat and hat and saying he was Tracy, ergo still playing the character, usually in interviews like this one.
The most recent example, below, of this was in 2023 when an aging Beatty did a Zoom call with Ben Mankiewicz for TCM in which he discussed his (as in Tracy’s) portrayal in comics and movies, including his relationship with (the actor) Warren Beatty.
It’s actually very meta, but it’s because of this and, let’s be honest, Beatty’s obsessive selfishness – why he does this is still a mystery, as he’s not making money from the ownership – in retaining the rights to the character that we have never seen another version onscreen, including the one Campbell wanted to make.
Now, of course, the upside to this is that Campbell went on to make the brilliantly bizarre Brisco County Jnr, a sci-fi-infused western comedy drama, and blazed his own path through the nineties and still to this day isn’t indebted to anyone, let alone Disney.
But I’ll not lie, a Dick Tracy series with Campbell as the titular detective could have been something to see.
Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all.
Check out Campbell’s post:
It is a great “what if.” I had a development deal with Disney in the 90s & tried to do Dick Tracy as a TV series. Mr. Beatty had other ideas. https://t.co/EP2zMX0CZm pic.twitter.com/9I0eePXGh6
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) July 23, 2026
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Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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