Trivia

The movie was originally conceived in the early 1980s by United Artists, and was to be written by Tom Mankiewicz , who had the movie's only villain, The Blank, with Flattop Jones as the supporting villain in a side plot. Mankiewicz's idea for the start of the movie was to have a beaten-up cop who was on his death bed having a police artist show his drawing of the killer without a face yet drawn. The beaten-up cop says "That's him!" and dies. Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould loved the idea, and wanted him to do the script, but due to Gould's demands on the picture that no one could meet, the project was shelved. After Gould's death, the demands weren't as drastic from his family members, and the project was in development again. After some new attempts with other studios and directors, Warren Beatty purchased the rights and brought the project to Disney and an earlier draft written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. was re-written by Bo Goldman , which became the final script. See more