Marking the cop thriller’s 20th anniversary, Miami Vice is getting a restored Director’s Final Cut, which includes unused footage and Michael Mann’s “preferred ending”. Update: Just a brief update here on the story that Michael Mann is overseeing a revised cut of his 2006 thriller, Miami Vice. Since the below was written earlier in September, ... Miami Vice | Michael Mann’s Director’s Final Cut will include revised ending
Marking the cop thriller’s 20th anniversary, Miami Vice is getting a restored Director’s Final Cut, which includes unused footage and Michael Mann’s “preferred ending”.
Update: Just a brief update here on the story that Michael Mann is overseeing a revised cut of his 2006 thriller, Miami Vice. Since the below was written earlier in September, a press release has emerged providing a bit more insight into how it’s changed – and word of major-sounding changes to its third act.
That press release, as published by World of Reel, has a passage which reads as follows:
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.
This makes it a different proposition from the Unrated Director’s Cut previously released on disc, which clocked in at 140 mins. Mann’s new cut, due to debut at Beyond Fest in October, will run 132 minutes – a minute shorter than the one released in cinemas 20 years ago.
Mann never got to shoot the ending he wanted, with an entire leg of the production set to take place in the Dominican Republic essentially abandoned. This new Director’s Final Cut will somehow bring the movie closer to his original intentions, though how he’s managed it with the footage he has in the archives isn’t yet clear.
Our original story follows…
10th September 2026: “Smooth. That’s how we do it.” As we’ve previously explored on the site, Michael Mann’s 2006 Miami Vice movie had one of the coolest trailers ever made. And while the film itself was regarded as something of a disappointment at the time, it’s later been reappraised as a cult classic
Starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as Florida cops Crockett and Tubbs, it was an updating of Mann’s own iconic 1980s TV series, though the filmmaker later conceded that the film didn’t meet his own expectations.
Two decades on, though, and Mann has overseen Miami Vice: Director’s Final Cut, which is set to premiere at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles next month (thanks, The Playlist).
At present, it isn’t clear how long this new, restored 4K cut will be and how much has been restored. There was previously an Unrated Director’s Cut released on disc, which ran to roughly 140 minutes versus the theatrical version’s 132 minutes. (Edit: it’ll be 133 minutes long, as mentioned above.)
And while there may be more footage in the archives for Mann to draw on, one thing he can’t restore was the ending as originally planned – the production was brought to a close three weeks earlier than scheduled, meaning the conclusion had to be dramatically revised.
Mann will be in attendance at the new Miami Vice cut’s premiere on the 3rd October, and is set to provide a Q&A as part of it. We’ll be intrigued to hear what he has to say about the thriller 20 years on – and discover what he’s managed to put back in.
Meanwhile, Mann is set to begin filming on another return to his earlier work – Heat 2, which should begin production in November. Assuming it isn’t delayed again.
Zooming further out, director Joseph Kosinski’s creating what could be a reboot of sorts with Miami Vice ’85 – a new movie that heads back to the show’s Reagan-era roots. There, Austin Butler and Michael B Jordan are the new Crockett and Tubbs, respectively.
We’ll bring you more detail on the Miami Vice: Director’s Final Cut as it comes in – including its physical release, which will surely happen at some point.
