Well, that’s was quick!
In their latest announcement of schedule moves, Sony has revealed its anticipated June 15, 2018 release date for the upcoming Super Fly remake, starring Trevor Jackson and Jason Mitchell. This puts it up against Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles and Warner Bros/New Line’s Tag. Considering casting announcements just happened within the last month, they are moving quickly on this release.
Sony also moved Anne Hathaway’s Barbie movie from this August to May 2020, and pushed Slender Man (which is from a black director, Sylvain White) back a little bit from May 2018 to August 24, 2018.
Trevor Jackson will lead the film as Youngblood Priest, with Jason Mitchell set to co-star Eddie, Lex Scott Davis as Georgia, Andrea Londo as Cynthia, Jacob Ming-Trent as Fat Freddy and Omar Chapparo as Adalberto. Rapper 21 Savage is also in talks to join the film in some capacity.
Additionally, rapper Future has come on board as a producer. He’ll also curate the soundtrack. Future will produce with Joel Silver and Steven R. Shore, the son of the original film’s producer Sig Shore, will be an executive producer with Matthew Hirsch, Hal Sadoff and Aaron Ausch. Alex Tse is writing the script.
The original film, which was directed by Gordon Parks, Jr. starred Ron O’Neal as Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer trying to get out of the business, and centers on him securing one last deal before getting out. It resulted in two sequels, Super Fly T.N.T. and The Return of Superfly.
Parks, Jr.’s father (Gordon Parks), directed Shaft, which is considered the staple film in blaxploitation genre that took that generation by storm. The original Super Fly’s soundtrack, written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, was even more successful than the film, outgrossing its movie counterpart.
The film itself, now a cult classic, did garner criticism because of its portrayal of black people and drugs.
Director X, whose real name is Julien Christian Lutz, is an accomplished music video director, doing work for the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. His feature directorial debut was the Canadian drama film, Across the Line, which starred Stephan James.
Jackson, who currently stars in the black-ish spinoff, grown-ish, was last seen in a film via the controversial 2017 black Greek hazing drama, Burning Sands. TV-wise, he also starred in Season 2 of American Crime with Regina King and Andre 3000.
Mitchell had a huge 2017 appearing in Detroit and Mudbound. He also stars in Lena Waithe’s The Chi on HBO.
This Super Fly remake comes as there is a booming development market for blaxploitation remakes. Kylie Bunbury is starring in a Get Christie Love TV series for ABC, Meagan Good is starring in a Foxy Brown series for Hulu, Jessie T. Usher is starring in an Untitled Shaft reboot and Misha Green is writing a Cleopatra Jones film remake — just to name a few.
