Austin Butler is circling the reboot of Miami Vice. The neo-noir franchise originated with a crime drama series following two Miami detectives that ran on NBC for five seasons between 1984 and 1990. One of the show’s executive producers, filmmaker Michael Mann, then adapted the series into a 2006 movie that is widely considered to be a cult classic.
Per Variety, Austin Butler is now in early talks to star as James “Sonny” Crockett in the upcoming reboot of Miami Vice, which is being directed by Top Gun: Maverick and F1 The Movie hitmaker Joseph Kosinski. The Universal movie was written by Eric Warren Singer (Top Gun: Maverick) and Dan Gilroy (Andor).
Crockett, who is a war veteran and a former football player, was originally played by Don Johnson in the series and Colin Farrell in the 2006 movie.
Sinners star Michael B. Jordan has already been in talks to star opposite him as Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs. Tubbs is a hotheaded former NYPD officer who was portrayed by Philip Michael Thomas in the series and Jamie Foxx in the movie.
The movie, which is set to kick off production in 2026, will draw inspiration from the pilot episode of Miami Vice as well as the overall arc of season 1. It is currently slated to debut in theaters on August 6, 2027.
If Austin Butler lands Miami Vice, it will be one in a string of major roles for the star, whose breakout role was playing the titular music icon in 2022’s Elvis, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination. Since then, he has appeared in prominent movies and series, including Dune: Part Two, Masters of the Air, and Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing.
While he has already cemented himself as an A-list talent, the role of Crockett could potentially be a major boon for Butler. Although his career has skyrocketed in the wake of his Oscar nomination, Elvis is still the highest-grossing movie in which he plays either a lead or co-lead role.
Elvis grossed $288.1 million worldwide and is Austin Butler’s third highest-grossing movie overall behind Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood ($377.4 million) and Dune: Part Two ($715.4 million).
However, that could change if Miami Vice becomes a major hit. This is not necessarily a guarantee, given the fact that the 2006 movie failed to break even in theaters, grossing $164.2 million against its reported budget of roughly $150 million. However, the presence of Joseph Kosinski could be an ace up its sleeve.
Kosinski has already transformed legacy IP into a generation-defining hit with Top Gun: Maverick, which grossed $1.496 billion and became the 11th highest-grossing movie in history at the time.
However, his follow-up, F1 The Movie (which is an original story set in the world of the popular motorsport), also became a smash, earning $628.7 million and becoming the highest-grossing movie starring Brad Pitt in a leading role.
If Kosinski is able to achieve similar success with Miami Vice, Austin Butler (who has already proven his crime movie mettle with Caught Stealing, which garnered good reviews but failed to set the box office on fire) could firmly cement himself as one of the defining movie stars of the modern era.