Before a Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan go undercover for the reboot, revisit the what made Miami Vice more than a cop show.&nbsp;

One of Hollwood's new-age leading men has been spotted in Wayne, New Jersey, at the transformed Preakness Shopping Center, filming a reboot, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/miamivice85/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">official first looks have been released</a>.&nbsp;
So it's official. Once again, detectives Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs (played by Michael B. Jordan) and James "Sonny" Crockett (played by <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/austin-butler-iconic-roles-zoey-101-icarly-elvis-dune-2">Austin Butler</a>) will be gracing our screens. The film, directed by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, is scheduled for a 2028 release, injecting the ever-cool 1980s back into the pop-culture bloodstream. Miami Vice fits right into today's trend cycle with <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/madonna-new-album-confessions-ii-new-song-release-date">Madonna's newest album</a> and other '80s-themed projects like <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/the-shards-80s-fashion-ryan-murphy-cast-release-schedule-kaia-gerber-homer-gere">The Shards </a>and reboots of beloved franchises like A Different World and Little House on the Prairie.&nbsp;
Before we go forward, we must go back. Below, explore a guide to the history behind Miami Vice.

Don Johnson as Detective James Crockett, Philip Michael Thomas as Detective Ricardo Tubbs. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images.

Austin Butler on set in Wayne, NJ October 12, 2026. Getty Images.

Don Johnson as Detective James 'Sonny' Crockett 1985. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

At its core, Miami Vice is a crime show. In the rearview, it’s far more than that. It’s a TV phenomenon that helped make style, soundtrack, location, and mood as narratively consequential as dialogue. The 1984 Regan-era hit has hit a 20-year pattern and has since been adapted into a feature film (2006) and the pending 2028 film reboot.
The two-hour feature-length pilot premiered on Sept. 16, 1984. Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs were introduced as an undercover detective duo, navigating Miami’s high-end criminal universe. It began a five-season run with hour-long episodes on Friday nights until it ended on June 28, 1989. Anthony Yerkovich created the series, which Michael Mann executive-produced. The series used a familiar cop-show formula. There was an investigation, a target, and an operation. This was paired with a striking visual identity.&nbsp;
This distinction matters because Miami Vice didn't appear out of thin air, fully formed in a cloud of turquoise paint, hair spray, and Phil Collins. It was created through a blend of Yerkovich’s Miami concept and Mann’s rigorously cinematic taste.
The show’s first season earned 15 Emmy nominations, an immediate sign that network television had noticed the heat coming off its own screen. It was also one of the first American network programs broadcast in stereophonic sound, a technical detail that explains why its musical identity felt unusually immersive for its moment.

1984 was a year with an unusually charged pop-cultural texture. Bill Gates graced the cover of <a href="https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19840416,00.html">Time Magazine</a>, showing the technology of the future in the form of an American-cheese-sized storage unit called a floppy disc. Apple released its first Mac, and Ridley Scott’s now-legendary and foreboding, Orwellian "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I">1984</a>" commercial left an apple-sized impression in the minds of Americans everywhere. Entertainment wise, "When Doves Cry," "Time After Time," "Karma Chameleon," Van Halen's "Jump," and Lionel Richie's "Hello" dominated the music charts. And while the internet and personal computers were a restricted and limited novelty, Ghostbusters, Sixteen Candles, Dune, Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator, Police Academy, and The Karate Kid all hit the big screen.&nbsp;
This is the cultural weather that made Miami Vice legible. America was being sold a glossy, fast-paced, and evolving future with cinema reflecting that in comedy, teen mythology, action heroes, and anxious science fiction. The series arrived with high-impact packaging.
Each episode cost approximately $2 million (or $6,485,851.78 when adjusted for inflation), an expensive proposition for television and an indication of how much of the show’s identity depended on production value. Location, music, vehicles, wardrobe, pyrotechnics, visual design, and a cinematic sense of scale weren't just ornamental; they were essential to the premise.

Anthony Lattanzio in Episode 9 which aired February 3, 1989. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Thomas Carter  filming 'Miami Vice', July 1st 1984. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Here, Miami is the show’s operating system. It follows two detectives in a city where nightlife, wealth, fast cars, fast boats, drugs, and excess all create the perfect condition for crime to cross borders and classes. That tension is the engine of the series. The detectives move through the city using aliases and carefully constructed personas, meaning that the job is often a performance before it leads to an arrest. Sonny Crockett, with his relaxed tailoring, can slide into a suspect’s world even though he only ever plays by the rules when not in disguise; the polished Rico Tubbs provides both a counterweight as a risk taker and a reminder that the costumes are not the same as a private self in this glamorous game of good cop bad cop.
Yerkovich <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,959822,00.html">described</a> his early vision of Miami as “a sort of a modern-day American Casablanca", citing the city’s Central American and Cuban refugees, established Cuban-American community, drug trade, and surrounding service industries. He didn't use Miami as just an exotic backdrop. He used social, economic, and international complexity which created a unique landscape for a crime drama.
That's why the show’s atmosphere aged well. It deals in contrasts: daylight luxury and nighttime danger, beautiful people and terrible choices, high-end consumption and exploitation. Its criminals may arrive in immaculate cars or enter the front of a crowded nightclub door after brushing past a line of partygoers, but the series always pulls that glamour back to reveal its consequences.
A <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article2266518.html">Miami Herald article</a> captured the historical stakes around the show’s arrival: “The rolling set-piece is a telling reminder of just how far Miami and Miami Beach have come since Vice made its NBC-TV debut in September 1984, at a moment when the cities’ fortunes — reeling from a devastating race riot, the Mariel boatlift, a Haitian refugee influx, white flight, the rise of the drug cartels and an explosion in violent crime — seemed about sunk for good.”
The same article argued that Miami Vice “not only helped save South Beach,” but introduced the area’s Art Deco hotels and apartment buildings to a global television audience during a period when redevelopment threatened their survival.&nbsp;

The basic formula was deceptively simple. Crockett and Tubbs entered the underworld through an assumed identity, cultivated a relationship with a criminal figure or intermediary, and tried to close the case before their cover collapsed.
The detectives never seem to believe that closing one operation will end the crime problem because they know another organization is always close behind waiting to take its place. That persistent churn gives the show an almost melancholy view, even when an episode delivers the expected arrest, car chase, bust, or shootout.
These essential subplots weave the show together and extend it beyond more than just a weekly mission:
<ul>
<li>Crockett’s personal life and the emotional residue of the job.</li>
<li>Tubbs’ grief and scepticism towards the demands of undercover work</li>
<li>The strain of living as an alias, especially when professional performance begins to threaten personal identity and vice versa.</li>
<li>The vulnerability of informants, girlfriends, victims, and small-time players who sit closest to the danger caught between survival and exploitation.</li>
<li>The tension between the squad’s goals and the compromises required to get evidence amid institutional pressure and legal limitations.</li>
<li>The moral consequences of playing criminals so convincingly that the role begins to follow you home.</li>
</ul>

A Ferrari Daytona Spyder 365 GTS/4 on set. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Olivia Brown as Detective Trudy Joplin, Don Johnson as Detective Crockett, Saundra Santiago as Detective Gina Navarro Calabrese and Philip Michael Thomas as Detective Tubbs. 1984. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Unlike traditional police procedurals, Miami Vice drew on contemporary rock and pop, high-style clothing, and aspirational sports cars. The result was a highly controlled sensory experience: white and pastel tailoring, open collars, loafers, T-shirts under jackets, stubble, waterfront modernism, and an entire generation learning that a blazer could be relaxed without being casual.
Crockett’s wardrobe was the most famous. Relaxed tailoring allowed him to slide into a suspect’s world even though he only ever plays by the rules when out of disguise. The polished Rico Tubbs provides both a different perspective as a risk taker and a reminder that the costumes are not the same as a private self in this glamorous game of good cop bad cop.
The series’ style bible extended far beyond clothes. Michael Mann’s Art Deco-influenced production rules reportedly rejected earth tones, pushing the show towards colors that would read vividly on camera. Director Bobby Roth <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,959822-5,00.html">recalled</a> that red and brown vehicles were not acceptable options, even when a script simply called for a Mercedes. In other words, the car did not just transport a character to the next scene; it had to belong to the image and Miami Vice Cinematic Universe.

Don Johnson as Detective James 'Sonny' Crockett, Giancarlo Esposito as Adonis Jackson, Olivia Brown as Detective Trudy Joplin in Episode 4 which aired October 25, 1985. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Phil Collins as Phil Mayhew in Episode 11 which aired January 13, 1985. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal. Getty Images.

Miami Vice acted as a doorman and notable stop for performers early in their careers in the same way Dick Wolf's <a href="https://preview.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/famous-guest-stars-law-and-order-svu">Law and Order</a> serves as a rite of passage for the budding talent of Hollywood today.
A show about undercover detectives constantly entering new criminal circles needs a steady flow of guest performers: kingpins, musicians, smugglers, couriers, informants, club owners, victims, henchmen, girlfriends, rival officers, fixers, and people trying to make it out alive. The case-of-the-week structure could accommodate established performers, emerging actors, and cultural figures without losing sight of the leading men.
Notable guests include:
<ul>
<li>Benicio Del Toro</li>
<li>Iman</li>
<li>Stanley Tucci</li>
<li>Bruce Willis</li>
<li>Julia Roberts (Pre-Pretty Woman)</li>
<li>Giancarlo Esposito</li>
<li>Helena Bonham Carter</li>
<li>Lynn Whitfield</li>
<li>Ben Stiller</li>
<li>Wesley Snipes</li>
<li>Steve Buscemi</li>
<li>Michael Bay</li>
<li>Ed O'Neill</li>
<li>James Brown</li>
<li>Phil Collins&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
A notable non-actor, Dick Wolf graduated from general writing staff to his very first role as showrunner, which then led to Law and Order. While Law &amp; Order would become an institutionally minded New York procedural, Miami Vice ran on a different fuel: glamour, speed, music, and the fear that the institution may be too slow to catch up with the next criminal enterprise.&nbsp;

A Miami Vice (2006) billboard at the 59th International Cannes Film Festival May 17, 2006 in Cannes, France. Getty Images.

The Miami Vice universe is less a conventional franchise maze and more a continuing set of ideas. Chronology doesn't matter here. The original television series ran from 1984 to 1989 and Michael Mann brought Crockett and Tubbs back to the screen with a modern 2006 film, starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Rather than treating the movie as a kitchy, winking period artifact, the film reimagined its central premise in a darker, more contemporary tone with undercover officers moving through transnational crime networks, operating at the edge of intimacy, danger, and professional self-erasure.
The new feature leaves Jordan and Butler with pretty big blazers to fill and an inevitable invitation for comparison. But the key question is not whether the reboot can reproduce the past blazer for blazer. Reboots don’t always need to dress like the original. But it does need to understand the franchise's appeal: a world so seductive that even the men sent to police it might struggle to stay completely in line.
Butler and Jordan will star alongside <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/walton-goggins-young-photos">Walton Goggins</a>, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/dominic-sessa-anthony-bourdain-biopic-tony">Dominic Sessa</a>, Haley Lu Richardson, <a href="https://preview.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/whitney-peak-facts-gossip-girl-reboot-chanel-hbo-max">Whitney Peak</a>, John Leguizamo, and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/camila-morrone-something-very-bad-is-going-to-happen-netflix-series-what-time-is-it-out-cast">Camila Morrone</a>&nbsp;in Miami Vice '85 in theatres May 19, 2028.

Same City, New Vice: Everything to Know Before the Miami Vice Reboot

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