Wesley Snipes’ Best Movie Is Streaming For Free
Wesley Snipes stars in New Jack City, and the film is now streaming for free on Tubi.
Wesley Snipes has quite a few classics to his name — films like Blade and Demolition Man are undeniable hits in the actor’s career. But Tubi just added what might be low-key his best film to their platform. New Jack City is currently available to stream for free so check this one out while you can.
New Jack City stars Wesley Snipes as Nino Brown, a drug kingpin and leader of the Cash Money Brothers gang during the crack epidemic, while Ice-T stars as an NYC detective who goes undercover to take him down and avenge the death of his mother. New Jack City is also the directorial debut of Mario Van Peebles with a script by Thomas Lee Wright and Bradley Michael Cooper. Along with Snipes and Ice-T, the film also stars Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson, and Bill Cobbs.
New Jack City did fairly well when it was released, bringing in about $47.6 million at the box office against an $8 million budget. This would make New Jack City one of Wesley Snipes’ biggest early hits, as it came out in 1991. This was just a year before White Men Can’t Jump and two years before Demolition Man.
New Jack City remains a beloved Wesley Snipes flick to this day, with the current Rotten Tomatoes critic score sitting at 77% and the audience score at 80%. But perhaps the most interesting impact the film had was on the hip-hop industry. In 1991 — the same year New Jack City was released — Slim Williams and Birdman would start the rap label Cash Money Records, alluding to the Cash Money Brothers gang with the label’s name.
Of course, Cash Money Records would go on to become one of the biggest levels in hip-hop, signing major artists like Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and many more. Lil Wayne would also name multiple albums Tha Carter after the Carter apartment complex that Wesley Snipes’ character converts into a crackhouse in the movie. While New Jack City only really inspired the name of the label and the name of some of Lil Wayne’s albums, it’s an interesting tidbit of hip-hop history nonetheless.
Now would definitely be a good time to watch or re-watch New Jack City, considering that Warner Bros is working on a sequel to the movie with Snowfall actor and filmmaker Malcolm Mays writing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Wesley Snipes will be involved in any capacity. During an interview on his press tour for Dolemite is My Name, he mentioned that he’s not involved in the project and that he turned down the opportunity to be involved.
Fortunately, we still have the original New Jack City and Wesley Snipes’ performance to look back on. Best of all, you can watch it for free. The film is definitely a cult classic and well worth the watch for the story, performances, and direction.
Meanwhile, Wesley Snipes is staying busy with other projects like his guest role in the upcoming animated Marvel series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The series is set to air on Disney Channel in February 2023 and follows a young super-genius girl and her ten-ton T-Rex as they protect the Lower East Side. Wesley Snipes’ guest role in the series is yet to be revealed, but fingers crossed they could have him voice Blade considering this show seems largely separate from the MCU.
Of course, in the MCU proper, Wesley Snipes is passing the torch to Mahershala Ali to play the fan-favorite vampire hunter. We got the briefest hint of his character with a voice cameo at the end of The Eternals but there hasn’t been an appearance from Blade since. Regardless, Ali will be getting his own movie which is currently slated for a 2024 release, so we’ll meet the new Blade at some point or another.
Many people are hoping that the MCU will take advantage of their multiverse storyline and bring Wesley Snipes back as Blade in a future project as they did with Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man: No Way Home. In fact, we recently got a scoop that fans will get their wish and that Snipes will indeed return in Avengers: Secret Wars. We’ll just have to wait until 2026 to find out but at least we can enjoy New Jack City in the meantime.
