Here is another Serial Preview Program reproduced in Jack Mathis’ Republic Pictures Confidential, Volume 1: The Studio. This one advertises Republic’s 1940-41 slate to its exhibitors. The failure of Republic’s attempt to adapt the Superman strip led to a lot of alterations to this slate, which I’ll trace below (accompanied by enlargements of each serial ad).

King of the Royal Mounted was the only one of this quartet that reached the screen in its originally announced form, so I don’t have much more to say about it, other than to note how heavily Republic encouraged exhibitors to use Zane Grey’s name to sell it (“America’s Greatest Writer of Outdoor Dramas”).

Republic’s Superman, of course, was never made, and those “million pre-sold fans” with whom Republic entices the exhibitors on the advertisement below would have to wait eight more years to see their “favorite hero of today” in a serial. This chapterplay’s immediate place on the program would be taken by Mysterious Doctor Satan, while Republic’s eagerness to produce a superhero serial would cause another unannounced serial, Adventures of Captain Marvel, to join the 1940-41 program, with a ripple effect on the other two serials originally announced for that season.

The ripple effect of the unannounced advent of Captain Marvel, so far as Republic’s Jungle Girl was concerned, appears to have been the expansion of that title from a “Streamline Serial in 12 Chapters” to a 15-chapter “Super Serial;” Adventures of Captain Marvel would instead be released at the 12-chapter length. My guess would be that Republic thought it would be easier to get exhibitors to pay the higher fifteen-chapter price for a serial which invoked the Hollywood-honored name of Edgar Rice Burroughs than it would be to get them to pay extra for a fifteen-chapter serial based on Captain Marvel, a character with less guaranteed name value.

Adding Captain Marvel to the 1940-41 slate (a condition of Republic’s agreement with the Captain’s publishers, Fawcett; there was no option of saving Marvel’s debut for the next production slate) also necessitated that the last serial on the original program be reassigned to next year’s schedule. Dick Tracy Strikes Again, thus unceremoniously bumped from this program, would resurface on the next one as Dick Tracy’s Revenge (I wonder if that retitle was intended as an in-joke), and would eventually be released under neither title, finally reaching theaters as Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.