Michael Mann's Miami Vice has climbed to the top of Apple's PVOD streaming charts, landing in one of the top two positions every day since its debut on the platform on May 13. The surge in interest comes as production ramps up on Miami Vice '85, a theatrical reboot starring Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan, according to a report by Screen Rant.
The original series debuted on NBC in September 1984 and ran five seasons and 114 episodes before concluding in June 1989. The show launched the career of Don Johnson and became one of the most recognized cop dramas in American television history. Mann served as executive producer and writer throughout the run and later directed a feature film adaptation in 2006.
Mann himself is no stranger to large-scale comebacks. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he wrote for Starsky and Hutch between 1975 and 1977 before making his directorial debut with Thief in 1981. He went on to direct Manhunter in 1986, the Daniel Day-Lewis historical epic The Last of the Mohicans in 1992, and the 1995 crime drama Heat, which is widely noted as the first on-screen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Later films including The Insider, Ali, and Collateral extended his reputation as one of the more distinctive voices in American cinema.
The renewed attention on Miami Vice appears tied, at least in part, to the star power attached to its reboot. Butler and Jordan are both high-profile names in contemporary Hollywood, and their involvement has drawn press coverage that may be sending viewers back to the source material. Mann's separate project, Heat 2, is also in development and features Butler alongside Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio, which has drawn further attention to Mann's back catalog.
Miami Vice '85 is currently in pre-production, with no release date announced.
