Wesley Snipes says 'New Jack City' was originally 'supposed to be the Black Godfather'

New Jack City centered around Nino Brown (Snipes), a powerful and power-hungry drug lord, and New York City police detective Scotty Appleton (Ice-T) trying to take him down as payback for Brown murdering his mother. The cast also included a then-26-year-old Chris Rock as an addict-turned-informant. 

"I didn’t know who Ice-T was at the time, actually," Snipes added. "I was familiar with rap but mostly East Coast rap, and I thought the name Ice-T was kind of weird, actually. From a New Yorker’s perspective. And it sounded kind of soft. But when I saw him, it was clear that he wasn’t soft. By any means."

The cult classic was directed by Mario Van Peebles and co-written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper. In 2019, Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro reported that Warner Bros. was rebooting New Jack City with actor and writer Michael M. Mays at the helm. Snipes reiterated to Polowy that he turned down the opportunity to reprise his role because he didn't "particularly like the idea of recreating the drug culture."

Ironically, Snipes most recently starred alongside Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in a much-anticipated reboot as General Izzi in Coming 2 America, which hit Amazon Prime Video last Friday.