Remakes and reboots have become incredibly prevalent in Hollywood over the course of the last few years, with some delivering great updates on classic pieces of cinema. The latest film up to bat is Director X's SuperFly, which provides a fair number of notable changes to the classic Blaxploitation film, Super Fly. I recently sat down with the filmmaker to talk about the process of adapting this universe for a remake, and he noted that SuperFly is not a traditional reboot because of the strategic way that he went about changing plot elements. Director X said:
You'll see what we did is, we really took the original and broke it down. This is not one of those 'remakes' where you're like 'what's this have to do with anything?' The characters are there, essentially the same things happen to them, we touch on certain things, and from there we were able to make changes. We set that foundation. What do we have to do to make SuperFly, what are the original elements of the film that make this this and what are the things that we need to change? Not want to change. What needs to happen. What things don't we believe? What choices do we make that make new things happen, and it led us down this path?
So it seems that SuperFly actually does stick to many of the familiar beats that fans of the original may recognize. That said, Director X and the folks behind the reboot looked at the story and tried to find elements of the narrative that needed to change for the modern era. It wasn't about making changes for the sake of making changes (which some remakes often do) as much as it was about fixing things to build off of an established "foundation."
There are some clear examples of things that had to change to make this modern story work. In fact, Director X continued in our conversation, and he told me how that mentality of change led to the introduction of the film's Snow Patrol gang, as well as a Mexican cartel subplot. He explained:
In the original film, Priest gets robbed and attacked by two junkies. That was, a big-time drug dealer in Atlanta today is not around junkies. It just didn't feel right. So, they became Snow Patrol. We said, 'Well they should be people within the drug world.' So, they became Snow Patrol. These dealers. He has this beef with a big crew of over the top drug dealers, that leads us. The original film, the police come and say, 'We'll give you the drugs.' When the police find him, 'Yeah we're taking the money but we're also the suppliers.' I don't know if believe the police could supply this much, so in come the Mexicans.
To hear what else Director X had to say about the changes that he made to the original Super Fly with his work on SuperFly, check out a clip from our interview, below!
SuperFly stars Trevor Jackson as Youngblood Priest, the drug dealing, kung-fu master hero made famous by Ron O'Neal back in 1972. In addition to Jackson, the film also stars The Wire's Michael K. Williams, The First Purge's Lex Scott Davis, and Straight Outta Compton's Jason Mitchell.
SuperFly is currently out in theaters. Make sure to check it out on the big screen, and you can also head over to CinemaBlend's 2018 movie premiere guide to keep yourself in-the-loop on everything else set to premiere in theaters this year!
