Tag: action movies

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Michael B. Jordan, Austin Butler Rev Miami Vice for 2028

Pastel Suits, Fast Boats, and a Cast That Means Business

The latest news out of Universal's Miami Vice revival is exactly the kind of casting headline that gets a whole industry nodding. Edi Gathegi has joined the ensemble, reported by The Hollywood Reporter this week. Sources describe his role as a small-time crook with big-time ambitions who is in over his head — the character's name is undisclosed, but the part is said to be consequential to the story.

Gathegi is having a moment. He broke out as the scene-stealing Mr. Terrific in James Gunn's Superman (2025) and reprises the DC role in 2027's Man of Tomorrow. Superhero ensemble casting is having a moment too, evidently. Before that: X-Men: First Class, the Twilight films, The Harder They Fall, and a series-regular turn on Apple TV+'s For All Mankind. A "small-time crook with big-time ambitions" sounds like exactly the kind of role an actor like Gathegi could run away with.

The Ensemble Is Ridiculous

Let's take stock, because this cast list is doing a lot of heavy lifting:

Michael B. Jordan plays Ricardo Tubbs. Austin Butler plays Sonny Crockett. Read that again. Two of the most magnetic screen presences of their generation, one as the smooth undercover cop, one as the charismatic wild card. The Crockett-and-Tubbs dynamic is the engine of Miami Vice; this pairing suggests the film knows it and cast accordingly.

Then there's Alden Ehrenreich, signed in August 2026 per Deadline. Whitney Peak and Camila Morrone. Danny Ramirez. And John Leguizamo, revealed by THR in August as the film's main villain — Leguizamo playing the big bad is the kind of casting that makes you lean forward in your seat. Rounding it out: Andrew Schulz.

This is not a cautious ensemble. It's a statement.

Kosinski Behind the Camera

Directing: Joseph Kosinski, the man behind Top Gun: Maverick and F1. Whatever else you say about Kosinski, the man photographs vehicles, speed, and men with something to prove better than anyone in the business. Top Gun: Maverick is the textbook example of a legacy revival done right — reverent to the original, thrilling on its own terms, and enormous. The script comes from Dan Gilroy, who wrote Nightcrawler, so the noir credentials are solid.

The film draws inspiration from the original pilot episode of the classic 1980s NBC series, created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann. That's a smart anchor. The pilot is where the show's DNA lives — the glitz, the danger, the moral ambiguity. Set in mid-1980s Miami, all glamour and crime, the film is being made for IMAX, with production beginning in November 2026 and shooting in New York and Miami.

Why This Revival Feels Different

Reboots of 80s properties arrive with a certain sameness. This one has a few things working in its favor.

The director is the right kind of maximalist

Kosinski's films are tactile. You feel the speed. A Miami Vice movie needs boats that scream, cars that gleam, and night sequences that glow. Nobody stages that better. The IMAX presentation signals Universal wants this experienced, not just watched.

The period setting is a gift

Setting the story in the mid-1980s, rather than updating it, is the boldest and smartest choice here. Period Miami — the pastels, the neon, the specific decadence of that decade — is a character in itself. It frees the film from competing with every modern cop drama and lets it become a full sensory immersion. Audiences are clearly hungry for big-screen period spectacle; the success of epics like Nolan's The Odyssey shows that transporting viewers to another era, done lavishly, is box-office gold.

The villain matters

Leguizamo as the main villain deserves its own paragraph. He's one of those actors who can be genuinely menacing and wildly entertaining in the same scene, and a Miami Vice story lives or dies on the quality of its criminal kingpin. Pairing him against Jordan and Butler sets up a triangle with real charge.

What Industry Talk Suggests

Plot specifics beyond the undercover vice-cop premise remain under wraps, and that's fine. The confirmed ingredients tell the story: Gathegi's ambitious small-time crook, Leguizamo's villain, Jordan and Butler's detectives, a pilot-inspired undercover operation, and Kosinski shooting it all for IMAX. You can practically hear the synths already.

Production begins next month. Between now and May 19, 2028, expect set photos that will flood every feed — New York and Miami shoots of Jordan and Butler in period costume are going to be a whole genre of content. The film is produced by Dylan Clark (The Batman) via Dylan Clark Productions, alongside Kosinski.

The 1980s revival wave has produced its share of nostalgia plays. Miami Vice '85, with this cast and this director, looks like something rarer: a revival that might outshine the memory. In theaters May 19, 2028. Start the playlist now.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Bradley Cooper Stars in Paramount’s New G.I. Joe Movie

Every few years, a casting announcement lands that rearranges your expectations for an entire franchise. This is one of them. Bradley Cooper — fresh off the kind of box-office run most actors dream about — will star in Paramount’s new G.I. Joe movie, directed and co-written by Danny McBride. The news broke October 1 via Deadline, and it instantly became the most interesting thing happening in the action-movie world.

Take a breath and appreciate the strangeness of that sentence. Danny McBride. G.I. Joe. Bradley Cooper. None of these words belonged together until yesterday. Now you can’t unsee it.

Why this pairing is electric

Start with McBride. The Righteous Gemstones creator isn’t the first name anyone would pitch for a military-action relaunch — which is precisely why it’s exciting. His take is described as “grounded,” and pointedly not a comedy. This is McBride the filmmaker-fan, the guy who grew up on this stuff, taking the IP seriously in a way the Bay-era misfires never quite managed. There’s a long Hollywood tradition of comedy-adjacent filmmakers making the leap into earnest genre work and landing it harder than anyone expected. McBride has been teasing the project for months, including talk of Duke on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and you can feel the genuine affection.

Then there’s Cooper. This is an actor at the absolute peak of his powers choosing to lead a G.I. Joe reboot — not a prestige drama, not an Oscar play, a G.I. Joe movie. His role is unconfirmed (McBride has teased Duke, but that’s not locked for Cooper), yet the signal is unmistakable. When the most bankable leading man in the business signs on for your relaunch, the project stops being a risk and starts being an event. He’s currently shooting an Ocean’s Eleven prequel with Margot Robbie and voicing a role in Bong Joon-ho’s Ally, with production on Joe expected early next year. The man keeps a full calendar.

Paramount’s Hasbro master plan

Zoom out and the strategy snaps into focus. Paramount is mounting a full Hasbro relaunch push — this Joe reboot, plus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Top Gun 3, and a Call of Duty film all in the pipeline. The studio passed on a competing relaunch script by Max Landis back in March and went all-in on the McBride version instead. That’s conviction.

The producing team is heavyweight: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, and Zev Foreman via Hasbro Entertainment, with McBride co-writing alongside Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri. The Playlist expects a Summer 2028 theatrical window, though no official date is set yet.

The grounded angle is the whole bet

Here’s what I keep coming back to. The previous Joe films failed because they felt like toy commercials with explosions. A “grounded” take — soldiers, stakes, consequences, the weight of the gear — is exactly the corrective the franchise needs. If McBride pulls off what he seems to be aiming for, a military action film with real character work inside a beloved IP, this could be the rare reboot that makes you forget the old ones entirely.

Mark it down

Summer 2028. Two years of waiting, but the pieces are all there: a star at his peak, a director with something to prove, a studio betting big on its own IP, and a take that finally treats G.I. Joe like it matters. Sometimes the announcement is the event. This one feels like the start of something.