NEW YORK -- Who's the baddest dude ever to walk the mean streets of Harlem packing heat?

Could be Samuel L. Jackson, or it could be private detective John Shaft, the hero immortalized in the 1971 blaxploitation classic Shaft.

Soon they'll be the same guy, as Jackson is gearing up to play John Shaft in a new film about the tough-talking hero PI, headed for theatres sometime next year.

"Yeah, I'm the black private dick who's a sex machine for all the chicks," Jackson said with a smirk.

Jackson has long been touted as the perfect actor to star in a Shaft remake. But he says the script must be perfect.

"I have my own take on how I think it ought to happen, but I'm not writing it," he said. "Hopefully the elements I think it needs will be put into it."

Is the current version of the script too violent? No way.

"It's me, and I'm not politically correct in that way," said Jackson, who plays a pharmaceutical company executive who battles mako sharks in the upcoming Deep Blue Sea.

"I'd shoot innocent bystanders if they'd let me."

Directed by John Singleton (Boyz 'N the Hood), Shaft will also star John Leguizamo (Summer of Sam), and will likely include music by original Shaft songwriter Isaac Hayes, who provides the voice of Chef on South Park.

"It should be cool," Jackson said. "We'll have Chef does Shaft. Yeah, Cheft."


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