Wesley Snipes Explains Why He Refused To Be In The New Jack City Sequel

In 1991’s New Jack City, “Nino Brown” tells “G-Money,” “It can never go back to the way it was.” It’s a profound scene in the movie where one character eventually asks the other, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The actor who played “Nino,” Wesley Snipes, has a similar sentiment surrounding reports of a New Jack City sequel in the works.

“I’m not associated with it,” Snipes told Shadow And Act‘s Brooke Obie. “[I] have nothing to do with it at all.” Along with an upcoming reboot of Blade, the 57-year-old actor is watching some of his memorable roles coming back with sequels and recreations. In the case of a beloved film like New Jack City, the actor urges for a greater sense of morality.

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“I think some things should be left alone…if it worked at the time under the circumstances,” Snipes said. “And the story was built around things that are current. I don’t particularly like the idea of recreating the drug culture. For what? I don’t know. They actually talked to me about doing it, and I told them no. If I had a dime for every time I’ve said no,” he said. Snipes cements his answer to film execs. “It’s a done deal; it’s a wrap.”

In a 2018 interview with The Cipher‘s Shawn Setaro, Ice-T, who played detective “Scotty Appleton” in New Jack City, said he had been in discussions about a sequel, conversations that also included Wesley Snipes. “The new movie [script] opens up with [‘Nino Brown’] in the ER, with barely a pulse. Then he flat-lines. [My character ‘Scotty Appleton’ is] there with the cops and everything. Then, right as he flat-lines, the mothaf*cka reaches out and grabs my wrist, and the pulse kicks back in. Then he comes back. The [sequel] was supposed to be something about him and me teaming up and going after the next-level gangsters.”

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Snipes stars in the just-released Dolemite Is My Name. He is in a cast alongside Eddie Murphy, who was in considerations for the original New Jack City, according to the 1991 film’s co-writer, Thomas Lee Wright. Screenwriters Barry Michael Cooper and Wright each spoke to Ambrosia For Heads for the film’s 25th-anniversary back in 2016. Cooper, a native of Harlem (where the film is set), wrote his script following groundbreaking journalism surrounding the crack cocaine epidemic during the 1980s.

One of the original film producers, Doug McHenry, is working with Malcolm M. Mays (Snowfall) and Bill Gerber (A Star Is Born3 Kings) on the next film’s script.

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Additional Reporting by Parfit.