It’ll be at least two decades since the last Miami Vice reboot hit the streets, so everybody take a breath.
Miami Vice seems to be gearing up to add a new officer to its ranks. Michael B. Jordan is reportedly about to board the upcoming reboot of the hot cop property, and now word on the street is that Elvis star Austin Butler may be about to go undercover, too.
That’s what our C.I. over at Deadline tells us. Butler is apparently in talks to take on the role of stubble-jawed narcotics cop James “Sonny” Crockett”, whose sockless shoes were previously worn by Don Johnson and Colin Farrell. If he signs on the dotted line, he’ll presumably be starring opposite Michael B. Jordan playing Ricardo Tubbs. Neither have committed yet, but production has been set for a mid-2026 start date, so we can expect confirmation either way fairly soon.
Miami Vice is a bit of a weird property. The original series, starring the aforementioned Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as Tubbs, ran from 1984 to 1987 and was an epochal TV series, translating MTV visuals to broadcast drama, foregrounding a then-hot contemporary soundtrack, and well and truly privileging style over substance. Like so many icons of the ’80s, it slipped from Hot to Not pretty quickly. Series executive producer Michael Mann (who didn’t create the series – that was Anthony Yerkovich) mounted a big screen remake in 2006 with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx in the lead roles, but that was coolly received, only being revaluated in recent years.
That reevaluation may be the reason for this mooted redux, which is set to be directed by Joseph Kosinski, who has form for resurrecting beloved ’80s properties – he did Top Gun: Maverick, after all. Having helmed the recent Brad Pitt vehicle F1, it seems Kosinski might be working on an informal land-sea-air trilogy, presuming the cartels in his Miami Vice use go-fast boats.
Not much else is known at this stage, apart from the fact that Andor main man Tony Gilroy has penned the latest script draft. What the story will be is anyone’s guess. Personally, I’d like to see an ’80s-set period piece. Sure, you could set it now, but I’m not really up for two hours of watching Jordan and Butler bullseye Colombian fishermen in illegal drone strikes. Pretty sure Gilroy’s across it, though.
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