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That would have been interesting, though obviously evocative of a similar sequence in the original "Robocop" involving a Detroit councilman. Are you aware if it was cut due to similarities? Or just because of budget/time restraints. I'm aware that the production ran well over its original slotted budget.

I did come across a transcribed conversation between the writers and Beatty where he commented that this opening sequence would be an expense and wasn't keen on keeping it since it didn't tie into the rest of the story. The similarity with the scene in RoboCop also may have been a contributing factor in having it removed. I remember on the audio commentary for RoboCop, cowriter Ed Neumeier mentioned that the sequence was inspired by the killing of Harvey Milk. I asked co-writer Jack Epps Jr. if this too was their inspiration  and he denied it. I would like to further research if this occurred in other films, because the only one I could think of was Last Action Hero that came 3 years later. There's also a detail about how RoboCop producer, Jon Davidson, was at one point attached to work on Dick Tracy, but decided to work on the sequel to RoboCop instead for more creative freedom than he would have working with Beatty. Perhaps that was a contribution of Davidson's with prior knowledge of the previous drafts for the mayor hostage scene. I do know that at one point Richard Benjamin was attached to direct Dick Tracy, and subsequently left to direct 1930's period film City Heat where a music choice and ending shootout sequence was lifted from the Tracy script that the writers were not happy to see utilized in another movie.

The Mole was one of those Dick Tracy villains that later reformed, correct? Actually, that would have made some sense for the Mole to be something of a double agent/informant/stool pigeon given the character's history from the strip. With the "Mole" name being rather on the nose, but hey that's the fun of it!

Right, one of the few reformed villains, along with Steve the Tramp. I hope I can one day uncover why this change occurred. There probably concerned about how to portray Mumbles' mumbling. Hoffman knocked it out of the park thanks to Beatty direction of having him do an impression of a mutual friend of theirs (Beatty has said it was a Los Angeles Times reporter, but other sources sound like it was more than likely producer Robert Evans). As you may be aware, Beatty dared Hoffman into being in this movie by telling him he going to use his impression for the original actor cast as Mumbles, Harry Dean Stanton, Hoffman wasn't fond of someone doing his impression so he told him he would do it. We were lucky Hoffman got to contribute because he only had a short window in his schedule as he was prepping up do Hook and when he arrived on set the day after, he won the Oscar for Rain Man, he was suffering from the flu. Now that I think about it, I think Harry Dean Stanton would've been a good choice for The Mole. Danny DeVito would've been as well, but that's a little too obvious.

I believe your segment was right after the very nice interview with the late Lena Headey. It was great to hear how acceptable Warren was towards Lena's idea of dying her hair red, rather than leaving it as is, due to how color rich the film was itself.

I wasn't aware of the falling out with the writers. That's interesting.

I do need to listen to that episode again. I remember being quite surprised to hear myself follow her interview, and it's a shame that I never had an opportunity like the hosted to talk to her more about her experiences. I do remember reading that Beatty wanted Tess to be redheaded instead of a blonde, like she was in the comic strip, as a tribute to his mother who read him the Dick Tracy comic strips as a boy and for his sister who I'm sure you know is Shirley MacLaine. It's just interesting to note how Vicki Vale in Batman '89 went from redheaded to blonde haired.

I wasn't aware of the falling out with the writers. That's interesting.

It wasn't necessarily a falling out as it was just carrying out business. The script, for the movie was dormant for almost a half a decade until it got back up and running again when Beatty made his deal with Disney to make the movie. By that time, the writers were tackling other projects, and it is normal for further revisions to be handled by other riders that many times don't go credited because of a stipulation by the guild that states that you have to contribute more than 33% original ideas to get credit. The basis of their arbitration statement to get full credit, mainly detailed how Beatty and Goldman had simply rearrange scenes and changed dialogue which didn't necessitate a worthy credit.

Oh, for sure. This is all just fantasy booking of course, but it would have made all the sense in the world, had the 1990 been more successful and Disney wanting a sequel right away, for the Brow and especially Pruneface to be the villains during the backdrop of WW2. I mean, I think it's arguably safe to say that Pruneface is probably Tracy's most recognizable villain outside of Flattop, so it's easy to imagine him being saved and utilized for a sequel had Pruneface not been killed off already in the 1990 movie.

Conceding that Pruneface's appearance been postponed for a sequel, I have doubts as to R.G. Armstrong being cast in the role. Mainly due to the role certainly being beefed up and more flashier I would assume. As this probably would have resulted in something akin to how Warners was handling casting the Batman villains at the time, and I would think a somewhat bigger name would have been sought after to follow in the steps of Pacino's Big Boy.

I can sorta envision possibly Dennis Hopper accepting the part. I believe he and Beatty were friends. Gene Hackman as Pruneface in a Dick Tracy sequel would have been great, but I don't think he was too crazy about working with Beatty. Having already turned down appearing in the 1990 because of this if I am not mistaken...

I do like your casting suggestions for Pruneface. I've read an interview with the makeup artists where they heard that Kurtwood Smith was apparently up for a role and they were excited at the prospect of him playing Flattop but we're disappointing to hear he was up for the role of Pruneface. He definitely would've excelled in the role if his character was saved for a World War II era sequel. The casting of Armstrong seems off with his Texas-accent when you're aware of his status as a German spy from the comics. Something that I really wish would've survived into the final film was that Pruneface was supposed to be a pyromaniac (a detail that survived into the character description and accessories for the Playmates action figure) and instead of Tracy being covered in cement, he was supposed to be doused with gasoline and Pruneface taunts him with a lit match but is rescued as he is in the film by The Blank shooting Pruneface. Despite this loss, Collins got a lot of mileage out of the more sinister Mrs. Pruneface who placed Tracy is his most famous death trap.

I wasn't aware of this, but that's something to think about. Interesting route to take for sure. Do you know if Landis was planning on using a multitude of villains for his version? Or was Landis planning on taking the more common approach and just use one villain (and stock henchmen) from the rogues gallery? I believe you said that Landis was also going to use Big Boy as the main villain, but I can't recall if you mentioned any others that were in the cards during his time on the project...

Yes, the final movie is pretty much what Landis was intending to direct from the beginning. I spoke to Landis about his involvement and he said that he implemented the idea that Beatty eventually followed through of making the film look like the comic strip. He had confidence in make up artist Rick Baker to have the villains look like real life incarnations of their drawings and his wife, costume designer Deborah Nadoolman, was interested in doing multicolored period clothing, including Tracy's trademark yellow hat and coat. When Landis had to step down and director Walter Hill took over, Hill didn't want to take that approach and was envisioning something that Brian de Palma would eventually carry through with The Untouchables.

I think Beatty did a pretty good job with the 1990 Dick Tracy movie. Arguably, he incorporated as many of the heavy hitters as possible from Chester Gould's Tracy rogues gallery, but you're right, some were left. I understand there were a few prequel comics, and Max Allan Collins writing the movie novelization, along with two sequel paperbacks. Wasn't Shakey and B.B. Eyes a few of the villains he used?

B.B. Eyes was utilized in both the prequel comics written by comics writer and co-story consultant/editor of 1990 Flash television series, John Francis Moore, and in Collins' first sequel novel. Shakey also appeared in both and there was a one point in the scripting phase where he appeared in a pre-credits sequence where he's convict who takes the mayor hostage and demands a swap for Tracy who is called to the scene via the two-way wrist radio while attending the opera. The sequence was subsequently cut and shifted so that Tracy is called to the scene of the Seventh Street garage massacre.

Many other characters from the strip appeared in the original drafts and were subsequently replaced with others. Even though the early drafts always utilized Mumbles as the stool pigeon character, for some reason one of the later drafts that was close to the final shooting script utilized The Mole and this was reflected in the Disney Audio Adventures two part comic adaptation. Even during production they were adding characters with some input from Collins. One of these was Influence who never appeared in any previous drafts. His character didn't even get to use his gimmick of being able to hypnotize people, and was simply chosen because of his skull like face that complemented Henry Silva's natural face.

Honestly, I found out about these listening to a podcast some time back covering the Beatty film. According to the guy that supposedly read them, the sequel would have taken place during WW2, focusing on an espionage plot involving Pruneface and The Brow. Which makes sense, considering the villains themselves from the strip, but apparently the writer was unaware that they were already appearing in the final film itself.

If it was for The Projection Booth, that was definitely yours truly. All of the details were indeed derived from those treatments and while there were some erroneous errors of repeating villains that were killed off in the final film, to the writers' credit, when they wrote the two sequel proposals, they weren't privy to who was being used as Beatty and Bo Goldman were revising the screenplay without their input. This would later became of moment of contention when Beatty and Goldman wanted credit and the original writers filed an arbitration to the Writers Guild stating that their work wasn't substantial enough to get credit and thus split residuals. Beatty would subsequently dismissed their sequel ideas when they were presented to them.

As I mentioned earlier with Influence, The Brow was another great looking villain they wanted to use for the opening card game that also appeared on many of the promotional material like the McDonald's scratch off game. When Collins was writing the first draft of the novelization, he was thinking ahead and decided that The Brow and others' place in the World War II era of the comic strip would be better utilized and decided to create other characters to replace them. Disney did not like this change and ordered him to stick to the script so he had to reluctantly use them although they would've been fine additions to his subsequent World War II era sequel.

There is some details about Beatty being interested in doing a previous iteration of Dick Tracy that involved the character dealing with Nazis kidnapping Oppenheimer, while the War of the Worlds broadcast is going on that would make it more of a historical fiction instead of the comic strip, cops and robbers approach that was first developed while John Landis was attached to direct in the early 80s that became the final film.

It is sort of funny that almost exactly 23 years after the "yellow spandex" line... well, here we are.

X-Men First Class technically did it first and we did get that tease of the Wolverine costume in The Wolverine.

In some ways, Daredevil (2003) reminds me of how Warren Beatty approached Dick Tracy back in 1990. Sure, there were plenty of nods, but it's also discernible that the idea was basically, "Let's try and get as much as we can in, cause we don't know if we'll be making another one!".

With Dick Tracy, it was more about throwing in as many of his rogues gallery into the movie as possible. With Daredevil, as already stated, the decision to try and squeeze in by establishing Matt's origin, Daredevil as a crime fighter, Kingpin as the antagonist, Elektra's saga, Bullseye as a villainous rival, Ben Urich's investigation, the Coolio subplot, ect was a gutsy undertaking. Even if the execution wasn't always satisfying, it's commendable it turned out as good as it did. Especially the Director's Cut.

The early-mid Marvel comic book movie boom had no formulaic approach and brand to go by, it was a time of experimentation. Trial by error essentially.

Ooh, I always love a conversation involving Dick Tracy as that's been my main area of research. It is true that they did indeed include a lot of characters in that film but the beauty of having a comic strip that ran for over a half a centenary at the time it was released was that was just a taste of who could appear in subsequent follow ups. Max Allan Collins was able to carry on with new villains in his follow ups to his novelization that could have gone on further if he wasn't let go from his writing position for the comic strip.

The deal with Daredevil was that it seemed like the filmmakers were set on adapting the Frank Miller run of the character as that was deemed to be the definitive take on the character and that made it much easier and condensed to tell the story they wanted to tell. I do remember thinking after I first saw this film was who or what could be included in a sequel as this one seemed self contained and didn't know any Daredevil villains that could succeed Kingpin, Bullseye or Electra. It all seemed fitting as Affleck made that after-mentioned humiliation quote about doing Daredevil. I hope one day he will address that and just say he was just full of himself back then, because it was a point of contention when he excepted the role of Batman, and pretty much showed that he should've followed his own advice if he wanted to avoid being humiliated, which did happen once Batman v. Superman wasn't the critical success I'm sure he thought it would get.

In both cases of Dick Tracy and Daredevil, the idea of consolidating everything into one film paid off as the sequel prospects didn't pay off.

Lucas could have directed Raiders himself, and I get the impression he was planning to do so before the stress of making Star Wars impacted his health (he wouldn't direct another film after that until The Phantom Menace two decades later).

I wish we knew more about Philip Kaufman's involvement with Raiders of the Lost Ark who is credited with developing the story with Lucas and was always subsequently credited for the characters. The only real concrete detail we have is that Kaufman was the one who came up with the Ark of the Covenant being the McGuffin. I wonder if he was originally slated to direct as well, but once Spielberg showed his interest in directing, Lucas went with him instead. A similar incident happened when John Milius was supposed to direct 1941, but when Spielberg read the script, he said he wanted to do it, and everyone obliged, because the movie's budget could increase.

Seeing him and Indy fight side by side in the following scene is like watching Batman and Robin in action.

Is Short Round proof that Robin could work in a dark movie, provided there's a note of comic relief?

I absolutely share this sentiment. Indy and Short Round along with the relationship Dick Tracy and The Kid shared in the 1990 film had me wholeheartedly agree that a true Boy Wonder could be pulled off in a Batman feature. I read most of the Golden Age era comics and thought that was the best approach to the character without all of his "holy-this-or-that" statements that he became known for. Good writing and characterization is key. They tried this with Zorro's son in The Legend of Zorro and he came off extremely irritating.

Such a shame that this edit will likely never be seen on a wider scale other than at Smith's theater. It's obviously not a complete edit that restores every known deleted scene and was completed before reshoots and additional ADR occurred. It, along with various other leaked workprints, provide an interesting insight into the filmmaking process. This sort of thing doesn't appeal to the average consumer and would only appeal to film buffs, especially in terms of this utilizing a temp score.

I really don't understand why Smith gets to show this edit for free without apparent consequence. It would be the same difference if it was shared online. Podcasters at the theater sounded pretty adamant that no recordings were to be made during the screening which is rather trivial since this is illegally obtained footage to begin with. When the workprint of Blade Runner got accidentally leaked in the late 80's, people made recordings of it before it appeared decades later on the Blu-ray. Smith's only doing this to drum up attendees at his theater that is obviously struggling by resorting to gimmicks like this.

Hope something can be done right away. I'm much more interested in seeing this workprint as it is instead of going back and making it as slick and polished as Snyder's cut of Justice League was.

Here's a quote from Michael Keaton regarding his very first costumed fight scene in Batman '89, where he battles the two muggers on the rooftop. Carl Newman performed the wirework and shots of Batman spreading his cape in that scene, and Sean McCabe would've taken the fall after Batman gets shot by the muggers, but it was Keaton himself who performed the bit where Batman kicks Eddie through the door.

Here's what Keaton had to say about it.

"I could barely move in that suit. To this day, one hip has not been right because I practiced when I first kicked that guy on the roof, and it was very difficult to get my foot up that high. It was like fifty thousand rubber bands holding you down."

https://www.slashfilm.com/1322342/michael-keaton-updated-batsuit-the-flash-practicality/

Supposedly he did multiple takes of that shot and ended up pulling a muscle in his hip. That injury might have been a factor in why Dave Lea was brought in midway through the shoot.

That shot of Batman kicking always concerned me as it looked like he fell over conducting that kick. Could always tell that was Keaton by the facial expression alone and I will freely admit that I fell over myself trying to do this kick and I didn't have a Batsuit on. Another reminder of how taxing these films are on the actors.

Hope that Reynolds will use this opportunity to call back Affleck's statement "By playing a superhero in Daredevil, I have inoculated myself from ever playing another superhero ... Wearing a costume was a source of humiliation for me and something I wouldn't want to do again soon." It's too good of a meta joke for a character like Deadpool to ignore.

So, all we gotta do is find this Joe Black guy now. There are fans who will do exactly what he got tired of doing for a month and could knock it out in a week. Would make a better presentation for Smith's upcoming theatrical screenings of it.

Managed to track down his YouTube account where he uploaded his portion of the podcast on his own page.

https://youtu.be/uQurxTQdDY0