Th actor, director and frankly full time lothario has a film output that rivals Stanley Kubrick in terms of frequency with the last film he starred in being the disastrous, ‘Town And Country’ in 2001 – a film that cost $90m and made $10m worldwide despite starring Beatty, Diane Keaton & Natassja Kinski and the late Garry Shandling. It became a by word for financial indulgence of it’s stars that even eclipsed 1987’s ‘Ishtar’ which also starred him……there’s a bit of theme running here…..
But the last film he directed was 1998 ‘Bulworth’ which was something of an acquired taste and it too hardly set the box office on fire. In fact his last bona fide hit was the critically acclaimed Bugsy (1991) and the box office hit Dick Tracy (1990) a really great comic book adaptation with big stars in full on prosthetic makeup and Madonna being Madonna.
So with the threatened release of his long gestating project about Howard Hughes this Autumn – the first he’s directed film in 18 years we get news that he may be considering a very belated sequel to Dick Tracy which may be set in, of all places……………space.
Quite how this may pan out is anyone’s guess because back in 1990 he was considered too old for the role then and now he’s 79…….well. In fairness the comic strip that the film was based on was not afraid to age its character so who knows?
Here’s the original Dick Tracy trailer:
