Clint Eastwood Rejected A Comic Book Movie Because He Supposedly Didn't Understand It
by Joe Roberts · /FilmThough it might not get as much shine as more popular examples, Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy" is one of the great comic book movies. Beatty's hardboiled detective and his adventures in a wonderfully stylized 1930s American metropolis seemed to impress a fair few critics upon its 1990 debut. But a less-than-ideal box office gross and the considerable shadow cast by Tim Burton's "Batman" ensured it quickly faded from the collective memory. As such, you might think Clint Eastwood was right to turn down the project, but not only was his reasoning dubious at best, but he might have reconsidered in light of how his other projects of 1990 panned out.
That year, Eastwood delivered one of his biggest flops with a spiritual remake of a classic story. But despite the financial failure of "White Hunter Black Heart," the film saw its then-60-year-old star/director stretch himself more than ever, playing a version of real-life director John Huston in a retelling of how his 1951 film "The African Queen" was made. At the time, expanding his dramatic horizons seemed to be much more important to Eastwood than any commercial considerations. That might have had something to do with his turning down "Dick Tracy."
The Beatty film wasn't exactly a box office triumph. Though it made $162 million worldwide on a $46 million budget, the film's final budget was reportedly more than $100 million. Still, that was a lot more impressive than "White Heart Black Hunter," which grossed just $2.3 million on a $24 million budget. In terms of pure numbers, then, Eastwood would have been better off accepting an offer to star in "Dick Tracy." Unfortunately, it seems the actor had trouble understanding the basic appeal of a comic book movie.
Clint Eastwood didn't want to play another big screen detective
Aside from "White Hunter Black Heart," 1990 also saw Clint Eastwood front another disappointment in the pallid "Lethal Weapon" riff "The Rookie." These weren't necessarily two of Eastwood's worst films, but they certainly weren't his best either. Had he appeared in "Dick Tracy," he would have at least had something slightly more critically and financially successful in his filmography. At the time he was asked in the mid-'80s, however, he simply wasn't interested.
"Dick Tracy" ended up starring Warren Beatty, who also produced and directed. But it had gone through several directors prior to that. At one point, John Landis was at the helm, and it seems that during his time on the project, he reached out to Eastwood to star. In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Landis was asked about what might have been had the "Dirty Harry" star agreed to the movie. "I'm the guy who hired Warren Beatty," he said. "The script that Warren directed by [Jim] Cash and [Jack] Epps [Jr.], I commissioned. I was preparing 'Dick Tracy,' and I did go to Eastwood, and he said, 'I'm Dirty Harry, I can't be Dick Tracy,' because he was still making 'Dirty Harry' movies."
But it wasn't just that the actor couldn't envisage representing two big screen cop anti-heroes. He also just didn't seem to understand the concept of a comic book movie. As Landis put it, "I also don't think he got it, why you would make a comic book movie?"
Would Dick Tracy have helped Clint Eastwood's flailing career?
After Clint Eastwood turned him down, he eventually landed on Warren Beatty to front "Dick Tracy." "I'm the one who thought of Warren," he told Filmmaker Magazine. "I had this ridiculous courtship with Warren Beatty, and eventually he said yes. He's a very smart guy." Soon after, however, Landis withdrew from the project due to being criminally indicted for the deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children on the set of his "Twilight Zone" movie. As the director put it, "When I was indicted, I realized, 'Oh s***, I have no idea what's happening to me.' I called Barry Diller at Paramount and Sid Sheinberg at Universal and said, 'I have to withdraw from the movie.'"
Beatty quickly told Landis he wanted to direct and ultimately realized that ambition — though it took several years of stalling and behind-the-scenes maneuvering to make it happen. When the film finally came to fruition in 1990, Eastwood's career was about to hit rock bottom before "Unforgiven" rescued it in 1992. After a decade of lackluster films, the actor was at a real nadir. Would "Dick Tracy" have reversed his fortunes earlier? It seems unlikely, especially considering it would have been a much different film from the one Beatty eventually delivered to considerable praise.
Regardless, you can see why Eastwood might have been reluctant to accept the offer to star. When Landis asked him, it was before 1989's "Batman" became the box office smash it became. As such, the only real comparison Eastwood had was to Richard Donner's "Superman" and its sequels, which, by the mid-'80s, had entered shaky territory.
That said, it wasn't as if Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" sequels were doing much better.