There’s still no word on who will have the honor of donning the leather duster of smooth-talking P.I. John Shaft for a new generation of moviegoers, but we do know which filmmaker has been entrusted with bring the black cultural icon back to the big screen. Deadline reports that Tim Story has been picked from a pool of potential directors willing to have the fruit of massive amounts of work compared unflatteringly to Gordon Parks’ 1971 classic of cinema.
The 46-year-old L.A. native has been directing films for 20 years now, with some of his most famous and successful being Barbershop and the Ride Along series. (Some of his lesser efforts involved Jessica Alba sharing scenes with a sentient rock.) He’ll be shooting from a script by Kenya Barris (Black-ish) and Alex Barnow (The Goldbergs). While the plot has not yet been revealed, we do know that it will involve the son of the titular character originated by Richard Roundtree.