By Courtney Crowder, Des Moines Register
After taking home the Academy Award for his role as twins in “Sinners,” Michael B. Jordan is taking on Miami’s mid-80s glitz and grime in “Miami Vice ’85,” a period cinematic reimagining of the eponymous TV show directed by Marshalltown’s own Joseph Kosinski.
Jordan will play Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs, while “Elvis” star Austin Butler will take on Sonny Crockett, both of whom are incredibly suave undercover cops fighting corruption and drug cartels amidst the era’s sweaty, heady cocaine boom, according to the Hollywood trades.
The film’s script will draw inspiration from the pilot and earliest episodes of the show, and will be written by Dan Gilroy, an Oscar nominee for his twitchy “Nightcrawler” screenplay.
The project fits nicely into the directing niches Kosinski has carved out with his oeuvre: The first in reviving classic content and the second in helming action-heavy stories with big budgets — and big returns.
Kosinski — who moved to Marshalltown at age 5 and spent his formative years in central Iowa before graduating high school in 1992 — directed the reboots of “Tron” and “Top Gun,” with the overwhelming success of the later making him one of Hollywood’s most-desired directors, and he conceived of the story used in the “Twister” remake.
He followed those movies with the Oscar-nominated “F1,” a car racing film about Formula 1 starring Brad Pitt as a down-on-his-luck driver looking for another shot and the team, equally hard up, where he finds his second chance. Despite being available to stream soon after its release, “F1” grossed more than $600 million worldwide at the box office.
Kosinski took a circuitous route to Hollywood, studying mechanical engineering at Stanford University, then getting a master’s in architecture at Columbia University, where he also taught. He’s said his work in architecture allowed him to sharpen his skills in computer graphics, which he used to acclaim in early commercials and short films.
Soon after moving to L.A. in the mid-2000s, Kosinski wrote a post-apocalyptic sci-fi graphic novel as a way to break into the industry. That storyline was reworked into “Oblivion,” the first film he directed starring Tom Cruise, who remains a good friend and supporter, he’s said.
Kosinski credits much of his creativity and flexibility to the freedom he had as a kid in Iowa.
“Being able to ride my bicycle around and going to movies at the Orpheum Theater — having lived in Manhattan for 10 years, and now, the Los Angeles area — the freedom was special,” he told the local Times-Republican newspaper.
While he’s not an engineer nor an architect in the traditional sense, Kosinski still uses the tools of those professions on his sets. On “F1” he worked with IMAX to design a special camera that could better capture action at high speeds.
Kosinski will use IMAX cameras again on “Miami Vice,” which is scheduled for release in August 2027.
Though the film’s marque alone comes with a cadre of built-in fans, Kosinski told the Times-Republican even established characters and beloved storylines have to be retooled for today’s viewers.
“Never think that people are gonna show up just because of the title,” he told the paper. “It has to be a great story. It has to have great characters. You have to show the audience something they haven’t seen before.”
“I make every movie like it’s my last, like you’ll never get another shot at it. That’s the attitude you have to have.”
Kosinski returned to Marshalltown as recently as November, when he appeared at a fundraiser for the town’s Performing Arts Center. And he’s even snuck some references to the Iowa city into his movies — most famously including a sign for Cecil’s Café, a now-closed (but much-missed) diner, in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
“I’m so proud to have grown up in this town,” he said at the event.
“Next time, I’ll bring a movie, we’ll watch it together and we can talk about it.”
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