Ice Cube has been open about his disagreement with Warner Bros. over ownership of his Friday film franchise, and the West Coast star has now provided an update on its future.
During an interview on Sirius XM’s Flavor Of The Week, which aired on Monday (June 17), he indicated that the series could be revived after more than two decades of absence.
“We finally got some traction with Warner Bros.,” he explained to host Flavor Flav. “They’ve got new leadership. Mike DeLuca, who used to work at New Line when I initially started with the first Friday, Players Club, and All About the Benjamins. Mike DeLuca was there, and now he runs Warner Bros.
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The N.W.A alum also provided a synopsis of his conversations with the studio.
“It was like, ‘Yo, what the fuck is happening with Friday? “Man, let’s get this back online,” he added. “And I was a little hot since it had taken so long because John Witherspoon died. Tiny has passed away. A.J. Johnson has passed away. Like, guy, we keep losing people, and you keep dicking around and not doing the movie the right way. They want to do it, but the point is that it must be done or we shouldn’t mess with it. So they eventually came to their senses.
So far, the trilogy includes Friday (1995), Next Friday (2000), and Friday After Next (2002). Last year, Cube stated that Warner Bros. owns both the name of the property he developed and the names of its characters.
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“You gotta use the same [intellectual property],” he told me. “Can’t call it Saturday without mentioning Craig and Day-Day. So it’s essentially the same thing.
While vowing to continue fighting for its ownership, the Los Angeles veteran stated that he is not interested in a court battle with his former studio partners. However, he stated that he will continue to “convince Warner Bros. that they’re wrong.”
The 55-year-old rap veteran originally revealed that he was working on a fourth chapter of the series during a late-night interview in 2017. However, the film has yet to be released.
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During a live taping of Drink Champs at the Rock The Bells festival in 2022, the “No Vaseline” MC revealed that he had submitted two scripts to the studio, both of which were rejected.
“I’m trying to get it out of Warner Brothers, they don’t believe in the culture man,” he stated at the time, adding that they will retain distribution rights for any future sequels.
I had two scripts. I wrote one—it was the stuff. They were like, ‘Yo, we don’t want Craig and Day-Day in jail because they went to jail for selling marijuana before it was legal!
“After they rejected it, they had all these fucking movies about going to jail, like Orange Is The New Black…”Get hard. I produced another script about the hood’s youth feuding with the elders. Craig must intervene because Smokey’s son is the new Deebo.
He said, “They tripped on it, fucked around, and then John Witherspoon died.” Then Deebo passed. They just messed it up.”
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