What does Michael B. Jordan do after winning an Oscar for “Sinners”? Apparently, become a billionaire art thief, direct himself doing it, and surround himself with one hell of a cast. Amazon MGM Studios has unveiled the first trailer for “The Thomas Crown Affair,” Jordan’s new reimagining of the stylish heist romance previously led by Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan.
Jordan directs, produces, and stars as Thomas Crown, opposite Adria Arjona, with Kenneth Branagh, Lily Gladstone, Danai Gurira, Pilou Asbæk, and Aiysha Hart rounding out the ensemble.
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This is Jordan’s second feature as a director following 2023’s “Creed III,” but “The Thomas Crown Affair” gives him an entirely different playground: wealth, art, elaborate robberies, romance, and the impossibly well-dressed criminality that has defined the property for nearly 60 years.
The story originated with Norman Jewison’s 1968 film starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, which follows an enormously wealthy businessman who masterminds a robbery largely because he can, and becomes romantically entangled with the woman trying to prove he did it. John McTiernan famously reworked the premise in 1999 with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, turning Crown into an art thief and leaning even harder into the erotic cat-and-mouse game between thief and investigator.
Jordan’s version isn’t simply a repeat of that formula. His Crown is once again an obscenely wealthy art thief, but his crimes have a purpose beyond boredom and adrenaline. The character targets artifacts that have been stolen, sold, or otherwise separated from their rightful creators and cultures, giving the heists a more personal motivation.
That distinction was important to Jordan when developing the film.
“I didn’t want a reboot. I wanted a reimagination,” Jordan previously told Variety, explaining that his version gives Crown more personal motivations while retaining the fashion and romance associated with the earlier movies.
Arjona plays the former FBI agent pursuing Crown, placing her in the lineage of Dunaway and Russo while giving this incarnation its central romantic adversary. She replaced Taylor Russell, who departed the project over creative differences shortly before production began in London last summer.
And there’s another complication this time around. Branagh plays a powerful antagonist threatening the Crown, adding an external enemy to a story traditionally driven primarily by the battle of wits between the Crown and the woman hunting him. The first footage was screened for exhibitors at CinemaCon in April, where Jordan introduced a preview centered on the film’s mix of art theft, action, luxury, and the chemistry between Crown and Arjona’s investigator.
Drew Pearce wrote the screenplay from earlier drafts by Wes Tooke and Justin Britt-Gibson, based on the characters created by Alan Trustman for the 1968 film. Jordan and Elizabeth Raposo produce through Outlier Society alongside Charles Roven, Patrick McCormick, and Marc Toberoff, with Trustman serving as an executive producer. Jon Batiste composed the original score.
“The Thomas Crown Affair” arrives in theaters on March 5, 2027, courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios. Watch the new trailer below.
