Shaft

Short Answer: Jane Shaft

Look, the Shaft series got going in the 1970s. One man played him three times. Then another man tried to reboot the franchise in 2000 (as Shaft II)... and when nothing came of that, they tried again almost a decade later, with the same actor playing the third generation of Shaft men. 

And here we are in 2023 with no new Shaft movie since 2019. Yes, there has been a pandemic, but it's also the case that we have not heard about another appearance of Shaft III.

So it seems that this method-- resulting in two reboots that did not reignite the franchise-- is not working. 

Maybe try... something different? We saw the very positive reaction when Tarantino brought Pam Grier back for Foxy Brown. So maybe something more along those lines.

We have seen Black woman kicking butt in the Black Panther movies (which did very well). So we have no shortage of butt-kicking black women who could play the part.

But we also know that the public is tiring of the eye-frying CGI-fests of the superhero movies.

Shaft is the perfect antidote. It has the same gritty, real-world setting as classics like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard.

So trying the Shaft character again is a good idea. Trying it the same way again? After two reboots? 

Another thing to pay attention to is the music. Shaft is not just a guy, it's a song-- one that Isaac Hayes purred into immortality. This new Shaft can have an all-woman soundtrack, why not.

The lyrics to the original theme song contain the line "They say this cat Shaft is one bad mother..." but before Hayes gets to finish that expletive, his backup singers censor him: "Shut your mouth!"

But, if we had Jane Shaft, and she's a an actual mom? Then we already have the tagline for the poster;

"JANE SHAFT. One bad mother."