Miami Vice ‘85 Looks More Like Miami Vice ‘87 in Those First Look Photos

UPDATE : Well, that was hasty of me. My fandom got the better of me and I belted out this reaction to the official Miami Vice ‘85 photos. While the photos show a darker aesthetic and hence my reaction to them outlined below, new behind the scenes photos have emerged online that show Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler looking very much like the TV show’s versions of detectives Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett, respectively.

Indeed, Butler’s outfit and sunglasses are identical to the style worn by Don Johnson on the classic TV show. So in other words, I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Miami Vice ‘85! Carry on!

If I wanted to see Sonny Crockett wearing a gray suit, I’d watch the Miami Vice movie from 2006 .

Universal released the first official images today of Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler in Miami Vice ‘85 , the upcoming big-screen reboot of the classic NBC television series that helped define the fashion trends of that big-haired decade. At first glance, Miami Vice ‘85 looks cool, sure, but it also looks wrong.

The first two seasons boasted its now iconic pastel color palette, with Don Johnson’s undercover detective Sonny Crockett garbed in expensive designer linen suits of various bright colors (most famously white with a T-shirt underneath). Philip Michael Thomas’ wardrobe as Ricardo Tubbs was always a bit more muted in color, but he almost always wore a double-breasted suit.

But after two seasons of pastels, NBC and the creative team shook things up when Miami Vice returned for its third season in 1986 by embracing a darker color scheme across the board , including in wardrobe. Season 3 also infamously destroyed Crockett’s black convertible Ferrari Daytona Spyder and replaced it with a white Ferrari Testarossa for the final two seasons.

I recount all this because, based on these first look images, Miami Vice ‘85 doesn’t look the way Miami Vice actually did in 1985 when the show was in the tail end of its first season and the start of its second one. That was smack dab in the middle of the show’s legendary pastel phase. That color palette was one of the series’ most talked-about elements. To this day, a movie can do ‘80s pop cultural shorthand by showing a guy in a white suit with a baby blue T-shirt and everyone knows it’s a Miami Vice reference. Hell, GTA: Vice City is a whole homage to the show’s vibe.

The show’s executive producer, Michael Mann, made his 2006 Miami Vice a contemporary tale , understandably dropping the show’s gaudy color palette entirely. The closest Mann’s movie ever came to visually resembling the TV show that spawned it was in its first act when Crockett and Tubbs are dressed in sharp suits, tool around town in a Ferrari, and are undercover inside a nightclub.

Michael B. Jordan is Tubbs. Austin Butler is Crockett. Miami Vice ’85 - now in production. — Miami Vice '85 (@miami_vice85) October 12, 2026

Michael B. Jordan is Tubbs. Austin Butler is Crockett. Miami Vice ’85 - now in production.

So you can imagine my surprise when I see the first look at the new Crockett and Tubbs in Miami Vice ‘85 and they look more like the later seasons’ incarnations of the characters. There’s even a rumor that Crockett will only drive the Testarossa in Miami Vice ‘85 . I know these sound like ridiculous gripes from someone old enough to know better, but, well, fandom gonna fandom. To me it’s no different than people picking apart a new Batman or Spider-Man suit.

Director Joseph Kosinski has spoken at length about how much of a fan he was of the original show growing up , so he certainly knows what he’s doing here in terms of not embracing the pastel aesthetic of 1985. If you’re going to make a period Miami Vice movie, then fans expect to see the iconography of the show in its prime and not from its later seasons when the series went into decline.

Frankly, I’m more hung up on Crockett’s look here than Tubbs’. Tubbs had a beard in later seasons, so that doesn’t really bug me, and I can rationalize the leather trenchcoat Jordan is wearing as being Tubbs’ look when he was still a New York City cop before coming to Miami.

But since Miami Vice ‘85 is adapting the series pilot and some of its first season storylines , that’s all the more reason why lifelong fans like myself expected the new Crockett and Tubbs to look a bit more garish. Maybe they will indeed wear the sort of fashion the show itself made synonymous with the ‘80s, and this is just one muted outfit Crockett wears at some point (nice touch on giving him the gold watch, though, and Crockett and Tubbs’ respective guns look series-accurate).

Like gambling at a craps table, you can’t play scared if you’re going to do a period Miami Vice movie. You have to embrace the gaudiness. It was a greedy, seedy and ambitious era, and the show was essentially a pastel noir. Dammit, Kosinski, I’ve been waiting years for a proper 1980s-set Miami Vice movie. Don’t be afraid to embrace all the elements of the show that you clearly loved, my fellow Gen X-er!

If the director and the studio are worried that people will laugh off a Miami Vice ‘85 movie that actually looked like Miami Vice in 1985, then I wonder why they’re even making it. As a fan, I ask them to heed the words of Don Johnson’s Sonny Crockett: “You just got to learn to go with the heat, Rico. It's just like life. You just gotta keep telling yourself, no matter how hot it gets, sooner or later there's a cool breeze coming in.”