It turns out that some TV shows actually SHOULD be made into movies.

There’s not much I can add to Michael Mann’s excellent Miami Vice comments shared below and excerpted from this article at SFGate.com. It’s just really gratifying to see a director take his material seriously rather than go the Dukes, Starsky or Charlie’s Angels routes.

And I think I’ve got a reasonable answer why Mann chose to make Miami Vice instead of merely making a great new crime drama without the title: because then someone else would make MV and they’d likely screw it up.

From the Mann:

“The whole idea was to do Miami Vice for real and to do it now, and it would take place now. And if you’re going to do it for real, then the first question you have to ask yourself is: Do I have those points of connection to the show?” Mann told The Associated Press. “It’s nostalgia, and I find that passive and not interesting.”

And:

“Who wants to go see another remake of a television show that has limited itself” to the same standards that applied to the series?” Mann said. “Small screen, no overt sexuality, no language, no violence. Had all these kind of censorship rules attached to it. So who’d want to go see that? I wouldn’t want to make it.”

Right attitude. Great filmmaker. Miami Vice opens tomorrow.