Why You Should Watch the Original SuperFly

SuperFly, a 2018 remake of the 1972 blaxploitation classic Super Fly, hit the theaters this summer, premiering to mixed reviews. Variety said the reboot traded the original’s “drug-dealer-as-outlaw-capitalist mythology for a glossy, slammed-together genre flick.” Now a fully remastered Blu-ray version of the ‘70s classic has also landed from Warner Archive, and it’s everything you could hope for. Super Fly created a sensation when it originally screened. Viewers fell in love with the cocky Youngblood Priest (Ron O’Neal), a cocaine dealer trying to quit the business and escape the criminal underworld — despite it being the one place a Black man in America could make more than “chump change, day after day.” Made with a budget of $100,000, the Gordon Parks, Jr.-directed film got Hollywood’s attention and its stripped-down grittiness still resonates. The super funky soundtrack, written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, climbed to the top of the charts and has became as beloved as Super Fly itself.