{"id":35576,"date":"2015-02-20T18:09:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T23:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=35576"},"modified":"2015-02-20T18:13:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T23:13:19","slug":"new-line-bringing-shaft-back-to-the-big-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/20\/new-line-bringing-shaft-back-to-the-big-screen\/","title":{"rendered":"New Line Bringing SHAFT Back To The Big Screen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shaft\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The black private dick who\u2019s a sex machine to all the chicks is heading back to the big screen.<\/p>\n

New Line has picked up the film rights to the Shaft<\/strong> franchise and have tasked producer John Davis with the work of bringing it into the 21st century. Davis produced the original Predator<\/strong> as well as the 2010 attempt to relaunch that franchise, Predators<\/strong>, which starred Adam Brody, and Guy Ritchie upcoming The Man From U.N.C.L.E.<\/strong> big screen adaptation with Henry Cavill.<\/p>\n

No cast or creative personnel have been announced yet for the project.<\/p>\n

The hardboiled detective character John Shaft first appeared in a series of novels by Ernest Tidyman before being adapted into the 1971 classic by director Gordon Parks with Richard Roundtree in a star-making turn in the title role. Backed by a funk score from Isaac Hayes, who won an Academy Award for his \u201cTheme From Shaft<\/strong>,\u201d the film was a hit with African-American audiences thrilled to see an African American in a lead role in a movie. That enthusiastic response lead to two sequels and a short-lived television series for the franchise and helped to spark the blaxploitation genre. In 2000, director John Singleton updated the character with Samuel L Jackson starring as the original Shaft\u2019s nephew.<\/p>\n

The Wrap<\/a>\u2019s report that now might be a good time to bring the character back, \u201cat a time when the country is fraught with racial tension,\u201d and I can\u2019t say that I disagree with that. Will Davis and whomever he hires to work on the film look to incorporate that thematically into the film? It seems like a no-brainer to me.<\/p>\n

Can ya dig it?<\/p>\n

(Here’s the original films’ trailer which is now a little NSFW.0<\/p>\n