Ice Cube wants Warner Bros. to “do the right thing” and give him control of the Friday franchise.
The West Coast legend criticized the studio during a recent appearance on Mike Tyson’s podcast series Hotboxin’. At around the 37-minute mark, co-host Matt Barnes asked Cube if a fourth Friday film would ever see the light of day. The rapper/actor admitted he wasn’t sure, as Warner Bros. has refused to green-light Last Friday despite growing demands over the last two decades.
“I don’t know. Warner Brothers is weird right now,” Cube said. “I don’t know what they doing, they don’t know what they doing. We’d love to have it back. I think it’s gon’ be close to a time when we get it back. So, we’ll either wait for that time, or we’ll keep trying to convince them that they need to let us control the movie. It’s my movie, but they have distribution control.”
Tyson then asked Cube, who starred in and co-wrote the first three Friday films, if he ever considered purchasing the rights. Cube made it very clear he wasn’t interested.
“I ain’t putting shit up for it. Fuck no,” he said. “They need to give it to me, and they gon’ make money. I’m not about to pay for my own stuff, that’s stupid … 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.”
Cube said he is always thinking about Last Friday, and already wrote two screenplays. He said Warner Bros. rejected the first script because “the timing wasn’t right,” while the second seemingly went nowhere.
“It was in development hell,” he said about the latter script. “They just kept giving you note after note after note, never giving you the green light.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cube discussed the upcoming album from Mount Westmore, a supergroup he formed alongside fellow California rappers Snoop Dogg, E-40, and Too Short. He said the project will highlight each of the members’ distinct rapping styles and remind everyone they still got it.
“We did it to make sure that the record is iconic, because the group is iconic,” he said around the 9-minute mark. “And the record has a lot of different personalities, you know. We’re having a lot of fun on the record. Of course, we’re spittin’ game.”
He continued: “And, you know, we’re also showing how ferocious we still are on the mic … Hopefully it’s a great example to other OGs in the game, that they can get together, too. You know, we can have a Mount Eastmore, Southmore. It’s never over if you stay creative and innovative. And if you keep your bars up, you good.”
The Mount Rushmore album is set to drop next Friday. You can check out Cube’s full interview above.
