Okay so I could have sworn I was having some sort of Mandela effect. I’m watching the Brenda Starr movie starring Brooke Shields and Timothy Dalton and I looked it up on Letterboxd cause I was trying to place the actor who plays the cartoonist (there’s a meta narrative at play).
Anyway, I happened to notice Letterboxd has 1989 as the release date and I’m like wait that’s not right. Then notice some reviews are centred on the 1989 release date being pre-Dick Tracy, pre-Rocketeer, etc. And while the film was indeed produced in the ‘80s, I remember a Comics Scene article about its struggle for distribution. My VHS box says 1992.
So I tracked down that particular 1990 issue of Comics Scene at the Internet Archive, and I am vindicated:
“And then, of course, there's Brenda Starr, co-starring Timothy Dalton, which was completed four years ago and is yet to be released.” The article goes on to describe Shields’ efforts to release the film. (This would of course place production of the film as 1986, putting it around production of The Living Daylights for Dalton. Not sure how accurate that is, either. But glad to have put that internal dialogue to rest. But also serves as a reminder that Letterboxd dates aren’t always the most accurate.
Anyhoo, Shields is great in Brenda Starr but the movie is an overall stinker full of orientalism and while it’s not the only comic/super-hero flick that struggled for a release post-Batman and post-Dick Tracy (Captain America and The Punisher come to mind) it’s not hard to understand why this one sat on the shelf for so long.
