F1 and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski’s big screen reboot of Miami Vice is revving up with Universal Pictures announcing an August 6, 2027 release date for the film version of the iconic 1980s undercover cop TV series.
Casting is currently underway for a 2026 production start. Miami Vice will be shot in IMAX.
The film is produced by Dylan Clark (The Batman) and Kosinski and written by Dan Gilroy and Eric Singer, based on characters created by Anthony Yerkovich from the series executive produced by Yerkovich and Michael Mann.
Unlike the 2006 feature film adaptation directed by Michael Mann and starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell, this Miami Vice movie will be a period piece that Universal says “explores the glamour and corruption of mid-80’s Miami,” the decade when the original NBC TV series aired.
Although Mann’s movie opened well, the costly production ultimately proved a commercial disappointment. Reviews were largely negative at the time, but the film has found newfound appreciation online in the last few years. Rumors of a Miami Vice reboot have been circling since 2014.
Kosinski’s movie is particularly inspired by the series pilot and first season (1984-85). In the pilot, New York City cop Ricardo Tubbs travels down to Miami in search of his brother’s killer and eventually teams up with local undercover detective James “Sonny” Crockett, who’s also after the same drug dealers since they killed his partner.
A recurring villain in the first season was Columbian cartel lord Esteban Calderone, whose drug trafficking operations stretched from New York City to Miami and into the Bahamas. He first appeared in the pilot episode, “Brother’s Keeper”, and returned later in the season when an undercover Crockett and Tubbs went to the Bahamas to finally stop Calderone. John Leguizamo later appeared on the series as Calderone’s vengeful son.
Although the show was episodic, the hunt for Calderone was a main throughline of the first season so it stands to reason that might also serve as the spine of Kosinski’s film. Even Mann’s film borrowed a good portion of its plot from the show’s first season, particularly the “Smuggler’s Blues” episode.
“The big-screen version of Miami Vice is in a no-win scenario. Purists will decry its variations from the 1980’s TV series that inspired it,” I wrote in my Miami Vice review from 2006. “Those wanting a nostalgia trip will be denied it. Viewers expecting a big, bombastic Bad Boys or Fast and the Furious-style romp will also come away disappointed. Fans of writer-director Michael Mann, as well as those who love their cop movies dark and gritty, will respond favorably to the movie, which is nothing short of a di-Vice-ive affair. You will either love it or loathe it.”
Who do you want to see play Crockett and Tubbs in Kosinski’s Miami Vice movie? Let us know in the comments.
