If ever there was a show created for the moment, it was NBC’s Miami Vice. From 1984 to 1989, the original Miami Vice rewrote the TV playbook with its stylish and colorful depictions of two undercover police detectives: James “Sonny” Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). The series was also one of the first to truly embrace the MTV generation with its use of music and culture. Now, its moment may have come again.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Vin Diesel and Chris Morgan are producing a new Miami Vice reboot series for NBC, with The Mist‘s Peter Macmanus as the screenwriter. However, we shouldn’t expect to see it on TV any time soon. The initial reports indicate that this revival is being eyed for the 2018-2019 TV season.
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There is a real question of whether Diesel and Morgan can recapture the magic of the original series. Michael Mann was one of the primary forces behind the Miami Vice TV series, and he directed the previous reboot attempt in 2006. That was a feature film with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as Crockett and Tubbs. While the film was not a flop, it’s $63.5 million domestic box office meant that it was a disappointment that failed to earn back its reported budget of $135 million.
While some writers might be tempted to get the ’80s setting for the reboot series, it seems more likely that Diesel and Morgan will attempt to attract their audience from the Fast and Furious films to television. It’s not impossible, but considering that this is a TV series that went off the air almost 30 years ago, it’s not as if Miami Vice has a huge fanbase waiting for its return. Color us skeptical about this one.
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