The film Chinatown was originally supposed to be part of a trilogy of corruption in early Los Angeles. Chinatown was about water, The Two Jakes was about oil, and a third film about transportation that was never produced.

While the third film was never fully realized, Robert Zemeckis used the idea as inspiration for Who Framed Rodger Rabbit. Rodger Rabbit is a neo-noir set in early LA, at one point Bob Hodkins says something along the lines of "Don't you know LA has the best public transit in the world!"