Veteran actor Warren Beatty is suing a multimedia company over the rights to comic book detective Dick Tracy. The star filed the suit at Los Angeles federal court last week (begs17Nov08) in a bid to prevent media giant Tribune Co. from forcing him to relinquish the rights over the character.

Beatty has owned the film and TV rights to the famous snoop since 1985, going on to play the title role in the 1990 big screen version opposite Al Pacino and Madonna.

According to the case documents, Tribune Co. could reclaim the rights from Beatty if he failed to produce a Dick Tracy based show, film or TV special over a "certain period of time".

Beatty claims he began filming a TV special on 8 November (08). The lawsuit will decide whether the project will prevent Tribune Co. from taking back the character from Beatty. (MJ/WNWA/LR)

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