Ice Cube In A Major Fight With Studio Over His Best Movie Franchise
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It looks like Ice Cube is having trouble getting the next movie in his Friday franchise off the ground. When he appeared on Mike Tyson’s Hotboxin podcast, the rapper and actor indicated that Warner Bros isn’t handing over the rights to the Friday franchise, preventing him from making the fourth film. He spoke about how he “would love to have it back” and added, “we’ll either wait for that time, or we’ll keep trying to convince them that they need to let us control the movie.” (via CBR)
According to Ice Cube, Warner Bros has the distribution rights to the Friday franchise and he doesn’t want to have to buy it back from them. He said “They need to do the right thing, get it to us, let us turn it into more money, and make the fans happy… We can do a lot with it.” The first Friday film was made at New Line Cinema, which Warner Bros now owns, so it seems like Ice Cube is now having to deal with the major studio if he wants to move the franchise forward at all.
Ice Cube has also indicated that two of his scripts have been rejected by the studio, further adding to the obstacles of getting Last Friday made. Not to mention the fact that several Friday actors, such as John Witherspoon, Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr., and A.J. Johnson, have passed away. There’s also no guarantee that original Friday actor Chris Tucker will sign on for another film after skipping out on the last two entries.
Fans of the Friday franchise will know that Ice Cube has both starred in and co-written all of the films with DJ Pooh. The first film was directed by F. Gary Gray and the subsequent films were directed by Steve Carr and Marcus Raboy. The first film became a cult classic and was a financial success, pulling in $28 million off a shoestring budget of $3.5 million.
Both of the films following Friday were financial successes, though they were critically panned. Still, if Warner Bros wants to bring in money, you’d think they’d give Ice Cube what he needs to make another Friday film. Perhaps the Warner Discovery merger could be playing a part in these roadblocks, but it seems like this conflict has been brewing since before the company retooled.
While it’s been a while since we’ve seen Ice Cube in a Friday film, he has been busy doing what he does best — making music. He recently released an album with the supergroup Mt. Westmore, which includes fellow West Coast rappers Snoop Dogg, E-40, and Too Short. While he’s still making music, we haven’t seen him in a movie since 2020. While he was set to appear in the film Oh Hell No alongside Jack Black, he was dropped from the film due to his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Ice Cube, he missed out on a $9 million payday for the film. Reportedly, the producers required the cast and crew to be vaccinated before filming in Hawaii and Ice Cube didn’t want to do it. However, his production company Cube Vision signed a multi-picture production deal for TV and film with Luminosity Entertainment in May, so it sounds like we’ll be getting some new projects in the near future.
