Another day, another potential reboot. Deadline has heard that Warner Bros. intends to make a new version of Mario Van Peebles' 1991 gangster pic New Jack City, which starred the likes of Ice-T, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Judd Nelson and Peebles himself.
With a script by Thomas Lee Wright, the original saw Snipes as arrogant New York City drug lord Nino Brown during the 1980s crack epidemic. Ice-T was 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 played "Pookie" Benny Robinson, a former stick-up kid who becomes homeless and poor after Appleton shoots him in the ankle. Pookie end up a crack addict and eventually a police informant who infiltrates the Cash Money Brothers.
Actor/director/writer Malcolm M. Mays is in charge of the new script, and while there's no director attached yet it's not outside the realms of possibility that he could end up calling the shots. He'll next be seen in Chris Morris' The Day Shall Come and is gearing up to make a crime thriller of his own set against the backdrop of the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis.