Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks and who is also getting a big screen reboot? If you said Shaft, you’re damn right! TheWrap is reporting that New Line Cinema has acquired the rights to the Shaft franchise and is, alongside Davis Entertainment’s John Davis, developing a reboot.
Originally a 1970 novel by Ernest Tidyman, Shaft was famously made into a feature film, directed by Gordon Parks, in 1971. Richard Roundtree played the title role, Detective John Shaft, in the original film, immediately reprising the role for two sequels: Shaft’s Big Score in 1972 and Shaft in Africa in 1973. Later in ’73, Roundtree played Shaft once again for a short lived CBS television series.
Although the small screen “Shaft” ran for only seven episodes, Roundtree returned more than two decades later for a cameo in John Singleton’s Shaft reboot. Although Samuel L. Jackson played the lead in the 2000 release, the film actually maintained a singular continuity with the rest of the franchise, revealing that Jackson’s Detective John Shaft was actually the nephew of Roundtree’s.
Although a new actor is expected to take the lead in the new Shaft, there’s no telling yet whether the film will move forward as a full reboot or whether an attempt will be made to once again spin the latest franchise entry as a loose sequel.
