*Ice Cube wants Warner Bros. to give him control of the “Friday” franchise.
The rapper and actor previously revealed that the studio turned down two scripts for a fourth installment in the popular film series. In the YouTube clip above, Cube spoke further on the issue during his appearance on Mike Tyson’s podcast series Hotboxin’.
Despite fans calling for a new film for the past two decades, Ice Cube told Tyson and co-host Matt Barnes that he’s not sure what Warner Bros. has in store for the future of the franchise, Complex reports.
“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.”
READ MORE: Warner Bros. Rejected Two Scripts for a Fourth Friday Movie According to Ice Cube | WATCH
Elsewhere in the conversation, Ice Cube makes clear that he has no interest in buying the rights to the film.
“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.”
When Ice Cube appeared on a special edition of @drinkchamps earlier this year, he revealed that he’s trying to get the franchise out of Warner Bros because the studio doesn’t “believe in the culture man,” he said.
Although some folks have encouraged Cube to rename the next “Friday” film, he noted that once he uses the characters’ names, it automatically becomes the property of the franchise and the studio.
The first “Friday” was theatrically released in the U.S. in 1995, grossing $27 million worldwide. It launched the sequels “Next Friday” (2000) and “Friday After Next” (2002). Cube said he has penned two different scripts for a potential sequel, but explained on Tyson’s podcast that “the timing wasn’t right,” for the first script while the second “was in development hell” andultimately went nowhere.
“They just kept giving you note after note after note, never giving you the green light,” said Ice Cube.
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