The ’80s Miami Vice Series Exists Thanks To One Of The Best Crime Movies Ever

Crockett and Tubbs owe Tony Montana a debut of gratitude. 

“Miami Vice,” the beloved 1980s crime drama starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as a pair of undercover cops in the Magic City, found its way onto the small screen partly because the studio behind it had a similar — albeit cinematic — concept in the works. 

In an interview with the Television Academy, series creator Anthony Yerkovich revealed that Brian De Palma’s 1983 film “Scarface” played a part in getting “Miami Vice” greenlit. “I pitched ‘Gold Coast’ [the show’s original title] to Universal as a film, but they were already doing one that was set in Miami — ‘Scarface,'” Yerkovich recalled. “Universal TV said my idea sounded great for a television show. I sold the concept in a 20-minute pitch meeting and wrote the pilot in about six weeks.”

The rest is, as they say, history. That said, even though “Miami Vice” was reimagined as a TV series due to “Scarface” at the time, the show’s creators approached it with a cinematic mindset, which was largely down to Mann’s influence on the project.

Michael Mann — the acclaimed director behind movies like “Heat” and “Thief” — served as a producer and showrunner on “Miami Vice.” His goal with the crime drama was to create a prestige TV drama that transcended other small-screen fare at the time, as his ambitions were more cinematic in nature than your average ’80s TV show.

“When Universal asked me to be executive producer, I said I had to have creative control, and I wanted to change the title to ‘Miami Vice,'” Mann told the TV Academy. “I wanted to give it the same sensibility as a contemporary feature film.”

Mann returned to this universe to helm the 2006 “Miami Vice” remake film starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell, but the film didn’t receive the same level of acclaim as the ’80s TV series.