Back to Top

Miami Vice Hits 4K: Is This the Ultimate Retro Upgrade That’ll Make You Reconsider Your Entire Playlist?

Added on June 3, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards

So, Shout Factory just dropped a little gem on us film buffs and 4K fanatics: Michael Mann’s cult classic Miami Vice is hitting 4K Ultra HD shelves on August 19. Now, astrology lovers, here’s a cosmic kicker — with Virgo season’s all about precision and detail, isn’t it kind of ironic that we’re anxiously waiting to see if this release will bless us with the theatrical cut, the director’s cut, or better yet, both? Because, let’s face it, nothing screams Virgo like wanting ALL the versions neatly organized on your shelf. As for the film itself, diving into undercover chaos with Crockett and Tubbs under digital lenses — not exactly a celestial masterpiece visually, but trust me, there’s enough mojo here to make a lot of cinephiles’ hearts go boom. And speaking of second chances, Michael Mann calls this movie the “one that got away,” which sounds like a classic Mercury retrograde drama, right? Fasten your seatbelts, folks; this 4K voyage might just be the undercover mission your collection needs. LEARN MORE

Shout Factory announced today that it will release Michael Mann’s Miami Vice on 4K Ultra HD on August 19. At this moment, there’s no word on whether this release will include the theatrical cut, the director’s cut, or (preferably) both.

Miami Vice 4K cover

Of course, the Miami Vice movie was based on the classic ’80s TV series starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. The film follows undercover detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) as they infiltrate a powerful drug trafficking network. As they get deeper into their cover identities, the lines between their real lives and undercover roles blur, especially when Crockett becomes romantically involved with the cartel’s liaison, Isabella (Gong Li).

As Michael Mann was an early adopter of digital cinematography, much of Miami Vice was filmed on digital cameras. Because of this, it’s unlikely that the 4K remaster will be an absolute stunner, but there are still plenty of benefits to be had, as we saw in the 4K release of Mann’s Collateral, which was also shot mainly on digital.

Although Miami Vice received mixed reviews upon its release in 2006, the film has since become a cult favourite. As the planned ending had to be scrapped, Mann views the movie as the one that “got away,” but he still loves large parts of it. “I know the ambition behind it, but it didn’t fulfill that ambition for me because we couldn’t shoot the real ending,” Mann said in 2016. “But whole parts of the film are very evocative to me still, especially when it comes to the romance. It was about how far somebody goes when they’re undercover, and what that really means because, ultimately, who you become is yourself on steroids, manifested out there in the real world. There’s an intensity to your living that’s incredible — the relationships in that world, the really heightened experience of it. And this is from speaking to some people who’ve done a lot of very dangerous, deep undercover over long periods. That’s what Crockett does.

Speaking of Miami Vice, it was announced last month that Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is set to direct a remake for Universal Pictures. Nightcrawler scribe Dan Gilroy will write the script for the big-screen project. Kosinski will also produce the project through Monolith, and Dylan Clark will also produce through Dylan Clark Productions.

Are you interested in adding Miami Vice to your 4K collection?

RSS
Follow by Email