'New Jack City’ Reboot

[Himmel]

We are getting word from sources that Warner Bros is rebooting its 1991 neo-noir gangster film New Jack City, and that multi-hyphenate Snowfall actor and filmmaker Malcolm M. Mays is writing.

The original movie, directed by Mario Van Peebles and written by Thomas Lee Wright, boasted a star cast that included Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Chris Rock, Flavor Flav, Allen Payne, Judd Nelson and Peebles. Snipes played arrogant New York City drug lord Nino Brown during the 1980s crack epidemic. Ice-T portrayed Scotty Appleton, a detective who goes undercover in Nino’s gang, the Cash Money Brothers, to bring down the drug lord for taking the life of his mother. Rock was “Pookie” Benny Robinson, a former stick-up kid who becomes homeless and poor after Appleton shoots him in the ankle. Pookie becomes a crack addict and eventually a police informant and infiltrates the Cash Money Brothers.

New Jack City, made for an estimated $8 million back in the day, grossed close to $48M at the domestic box office.

No director is attached yet to the new New Jack City, which Bill Gerber (A Star Is Born) is producing.

Deadline