Edi Gathegi has boarded the cast of Miami Vice '85, the Joseph Kosinski-directed crime thriller set to arrive in theaters on May 18, 2028. Gathegi, who recently suited up as Superman's ally Mister Terrific in the DC Universe, joins a call sheet that already includes Michael B. Jordan, Austin Butler, Alden Ehrenreich, Whitney Peak, Camila Morrone, Danny Ramirez, John Leguizamo and Andrew Schulz. Details of Gathegi's part remain under wraps, and the studio has yet to specify his role.

The project, which counts as one of the more closely watched studio titles on the 2028 calendar, reimagines the world of the landmark 1980s television drama for the big screen. According to the film's official synopsis, Miami Vice '85 explores the glamour and corruption of mid-'80s Miami, drawing inspiration from the pilot episode that first introduced audiences to undercover detectives Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett. The plot, beyond that setup, is being kept under wraps.

A Reunion With Kosinski's Big-Canvas Instincts

Kosinski's involvement gives the film its most obvious through-line to current blockbuster filmmaking. The director has spent the past decade building a reputation for muscular, design-forward spectacle, from Top Gun: Maverick through Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, and his attachment signals that Miami Vice '85 intends to treat the source material as a mood piece as much as a procedural. The original series was defined by its pastel palette, its synth-heavy score and its willingness to linger on the city itself as a character. Translating that sensibility to a feature film is a distinct challenge, and it is the kind of challenge a director with Kosinski's visual instincts might be expected to embrace.

Gathegi arrives at the production with a résumé that has quietly become one of the more versatile in the business. He played Darwin in X-Men: First Class, appeared in The Twilight Saga and Gone Baby Gone, and has logged substantial television work across The Blacklist, StartUp and For All Mankind. More recently, he took on the role of Mister Terrific in James Gunn's Superman, a part that positioned him inside one of the largest ongoing franchises in Hollywood. That combination - franchise visibility plus a character-actor's range - makes him a natural fit for an ensemble built around star power and texture in roughly equal measure.

A Deep Bench of Talent

The rest of the cast reflects a similar strategy. Michael B. Jordan is set to play Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, the role originated on television by Philip Michael Thomas, while Austin Butler will take on Sonny Crockett, the part that made Don Johnson a defining small-screen presence of the decade. Alden Ehrenreich, Whitney Peak, Camila Morrone, Danny Ramirez, John Leguizamo and Andrew Schulz round out the ensemble, a mix of dramatic leads, rising names and comic performers that suggests the film may be reaching for the tonal blend of danger and dispatch that made the series distinctive.

Jordan's casting in particular carries weight. He has become one of the most bankable actors of his generation through the Creed films and his directorial debut Creed III, and his decision to step into a role so closely associated with a specific era of television is the sort of move that tends to generate its own conversation. Butler, meanwhile, has been on a remarkable run since Elvis, moving between prestige dramas and large-scale studio projects with unusual ease. Placing the two of them at the center of a period crime story gives the film a pairing that should carry both commercial and critical interest.

A Long Shadow

Any new take on Miami Vice works in the shadow of two very different predecessors. The original series ran from 1984 to 1990 and became a cultural touchstone almost immediately, influencing fashion, music and the visual language of television crime drama. Michael Mann, who created the show, later directed a 2006 feature adaptation starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, a film that stripped away much of the pastel nostalgia in favor of a colder, more digital aesthetic. Miami Vice '85 appears to be charting a third path, returning to the mid-'80s setting while treating the period's excess and rot as its central subject rather than its backdrop.

The title itself signals that intention. By anchoring the story to 1985, the film positions itself at the moment the series was becoming a phenomenon, when Miami's cocaine-fueled economy and the law enforcement response to it were colliding in ways that would define the city's image for decades. Crime and thriller are the genres the production is working within, and the combination of a period setting, a director known for precision spectacle and a cast of this caliber suggests a film aiming for something more substantial than nostalgia.

Miami Vice '85 is set for release on May 18, 2028.

Source: Hollywood Reporter