Michael Mann’s Miami Vice Arriving on 4K This December with “Significantly Recut” Edition

While recuts are nothing new for Michael Mann, who made some controversial changes to his classic Manhunter just this year, we were surprised to learn the director once more picked up his scalpel and applied it to Miami Vice. Masterpiece and essential text of the 21st century though it maybe, the film had been troubled during its production and seemingly haunted Mann since: in 2016, ten years after its premiere, he remarked, “I know the ambition behind it, but it didn’t fulfill that ambition for me because we couldn’t shoot the real ending.” More recently, he spoke highly of Miami Vice while reiterating a key problem: “I would make the movie all over again. It doesn’t have its proper ending.”

Without flying cast and crew to Paraguay and finally shooting the elaborate sequence that would’ve concluded his film, Mann’s perhaps found the next-best means. Ahead of Miami Vice: The Director’s Final Cut (running 132 minutes to the theatrical edition’s 133 and director’s cut’s 139) debuting this Saturday at Beyond Fest, a press release for the five-disc 4K and Blu-ray set (coming December 15) has given a little more insight into what’s changed while raising altogether new questions.

So it goes:

“To mark the film’s 20th anniversary, the new definitive edition uses elements from both the original theatrical master and Mann’s first director’s cut along with previously unused dailies footage, with fine details adjusted scene by scene to help ensure the new cut looks and sounds better than ever. Fans will also notice changes to the story, with select scenes being refined, a re-ordering of certain scenes, and a significantly recut final act incorporating previously unused footage to reflect Mann’s preferred ending.”

The above starts simply enough—integrating footage from multiple cuts is nothing new for Mann—before raising about five questions per word. However much marketing language is, needless to say, designed for grabbing people’s attention and promising things that might not come to pass, Mann is on a short list of directors I might expect to take a major chance on new material, and that’s before we recall his decades of complicated feelings. Reports from Saturday’s screening couldn’t be more anticipated, and even the slightest chance to experience Miami Vice anew suddenly seem possible.